The development comes in the wake of the House of Representatives' decision to impeach President Clinton.

Senator Byrd issued a carefully-worded statement on Monday referring to a solution other than a trial.

Senator Robert Byrd suggested alternatives are possible

However, the influential West Virginia Senator says that in order to have credibility with the public, an alternative solution must be concluded by senators alone and not involve any deal with the White House.

"For the good of our nation, there must be no 'deal' involving the White House or any entity beyond the current membership of the US Senate," his statement said.

Correspondents say Senator Byrd's statement was seen as significant because he is an acknowledged expert on the rules and prerogatives of the Senate, and because many Republicans were looking to him for procedural guidance on impeachment.

Support for censure has also come from four Republican House of Representatives members who voted for impeachment.

They have said that their votes in the House did not mean that they saw removal from office as the only reasonable conclusion of the affair.

Representatives Sherwood Boehlert and Benjamin Gilman of New York, Mike Castle of Delaware and Jim Greenwood of Pennsylvania publicly released the contents of an open letter on Monday, before sending it to Trent Lott, the Senate majority leader.

"We cast that solemn vote because we believe that the president lied under oath ... However ... we urge you to allow the Senate to consider strong censure as a remedy," they wrote.

But the censure option considered in the letter was rejected by the same representatives in the House last Saturday, when congressmen voted against allowing Representatives to vote on censure.

With most senators away for Christmas, a resolution of the issue will probably have to wait until they return.

The Senate re-convenes on 6 January, and a day later swears in the Chief Justice William Rehnquist to preside at a trial.

There might then follow several weeks of pre-trial arguments which could give a window for opinion to settle.

However, there are still influential Republicans who say that a trial must start and once started it might be hard to stop.