Justice officials in the United States have stopped a museum returning two paintings on loan from Austria because they're claimed by descendants of Jewish Holocaust victims.

The borrowed pictures -- by the Austrian artist Egon Schiele -- will now become the subject of a criminal proceeding to determine their ownership.

They had been on display in the New York Museum of Modern Art.The managing director of the Austrian institution that lent the paintings Klaus Schroder of the Leopold Museum said the move was unprecedented, and could develop into a big scandal.

The BBC New York correspondent says loan agreements between museums round the world could be upset by the seizure of the Austrian paintings.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service