The UN refugee agency often did too little, too late during the Kosovo crisis, according to an independent report into Europe's biggest refugee exodus since World War II.

The report, compiled by a team of academics, management consultants and non-governmental organisations, describes the agency's response as ranging from variable to weak during the early stages of the crisis, when more than three-quarters of a million Kosovo Albanians fled Serb aggression.

Too few staff were sent, they were not sent quickly enough and were often too junior for the daunting task in hand, the authors claim.

A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ron Redmond, acknowledged on Friday that the agency had been "overwhelmed" by the outflow of refugees to Macedonia and Albania.

He said it was already drawing the lessons that would enable it to speed up its reactions to emergencies, and to deploy staff more quickly in the field.

Limited funds

The report lists numerous reasons why the UNHCR under-performed including cumbersome and inappropriate decision-making, and limited funds.

But the agency's major mistake was to treat Kosovo like a normal emergency.

The report says the UNHCR failed to take into account its extraordinary political nature with the national interests of major powers at stake.

The UN, as lead agency, was expected to be in charge, but for some governments the refugees were too important to be left exclusively to the UNHCR.

This meant many acted independently, setting up their own camps and deciding which refugees to fly back home.

In future, the report concludes, the UN refugee agency needs to improve co-ordination, as well as the quality and quantity of staff ready for deployment.

Complex operation

Mr Redmond said the Kosovo emergency was "one of the most complex, politically-charged, high-profile operations that we have been involved in in our entire 50-year history".

"Many factors affecting UNHCR performance were not under our control. But many things were under our control and we've already started taking steps to try to strengthen our emergency response," he said.

"We've got to get people on the ground faster. We've got to get more senior people, more experienced people on the ground."

The report was commissioned by the UN following international criticism of its handling of the crisis.