The United Nations has confirmed that it is stockpiling relief supplies in the Middle East in case of a war in Iraq.

The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, said that donor countries had been asked for more than $37m in emergency funding to cover contingency plans for Iraq at a meeting in Geneva on 13 December.

What we have done in this case is say, what do we think it is prudent to have in position now Fred Eckhard, UN spokesman

Aid agencies fear a humanitarian crisis involving thousands of refugees and widespread civil unrest if Iraq fails to comply with UN resolutions to disarm and triggers a US-led attack.

The BBC's Greg Barrow, at the UN, says officials have been cautious about publicising contingency plans for any military action in Iraq.

To admit they are doing so would suggest that the UN thinks a US military invasion of Iraq is almost inevitable.

Fred Eckhard, the spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said that "a first-phase assessment" had been made of action to take if fighting broke out.

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He said the planning focused on what he called a modest pre-positioning of food and equipment.

"I don't think anyone can accurately predict the outcome of war," he said.

"What we have done in this case is say: 'What do we think it is prudent to have in position now?' We have done minimal estimates of what might be required - what we would like to have in place."

Mr Eckhard added that the UN still expected Iraq to comply with the demands of the UN Security Council so that military action could be avoided.

UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said the moves were part of normal crisis planning.

He said the UN was also considering the risk that large numbers of people might be displaced both within Iraq and across the country's borders.

In Iraq, teams of UN weapons experts continued their inspections on Tuesday, leaving their headquarters in Baghdad for secret locations. Inspections are also expected to continue on Christmas Day.

A UN spokesman in Baghdad, Hiro Ueki, told the AFP news agency that about 150 inspections had been carried out since the UN resumed its work in November after a four-year break.

Scientists identified

On Monday, the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had begun identifying Iraqi scientists who might have crucial information on Iraq's weapons programmes.

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But an IAEA spokesman said officials had not yet interviewed the scientists formally.

The interviewing of scientists is seen as a potential flashpoint in the Iraq crisis.

Washington has said scientists and their families may have to be taken out of Iraq to be questioned, but Baghdad says the move is unnecessary.

"We understand to a large extent where all the old scientists were and who all the new scientists are, so the interviews are conducted more efficiently," an IAEA spokesman in Vienna told Reuters news agency.

In another development on Monday, Iraqi fighter aircraft shot down an unmanned American surveillance plane over southern Iraq.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon briefing he did not see it as an escalation in the crisis.

Iraqi forces "attempt to shoot down all our aircraft that fly over northern and southern Iraq," he said.