Senior Afghan officials are debating how to investigate reports that Taleban prisoners are buried in a mass grave in the country's north.

A spokesman said the Afghan Government was ready to carry out an inquiry but if it could not it would ask the international community to do so.

I don't believe that there would be a mass grave

Afghan Defence Minister Mohammed Fahim

The United Nations has said its staff would keep an eye on the site, near Sheberghan, to ensure it was not tampered with before any investigation.

The UN report, quoted by Newsweek magazine, spoke of a site that "contains bodies of Taliban POWs who died of suffocation during transfer from Kunduz to Sheberghan".

A UN team, which identified the grave, confirmed that suffocation was the cause of death in the cases of three bodies they exhumed.

But it added that it could not proceed until a witness protection scheme was put in place.

Differences of opinion

However reports say the country's defence minister and Northern Alliance power-broker, Mohammed Fahim, has rejected the suggestion of a mass grave.

"I don't believe that there would be a mass grave...," the AFP news agency quoted Mr Fahim as saying.

The minister added that he had asked local officials to investigate.

"The ministry of defence has some contact with the concerned sources in the area and the province to do the exact investigation."

The controversy has drawn attention to the role of US special forces who were coordinating efforts between the Northern Alliance commander in the area, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, and American military forces.

The prisoners were being held by forces loyal to General Dostum.