A senior figure in her National League for Democracy party, Tin Oo, said the security forces had now moved her car from the main highway west of the capital to a side road, and blocked it in with police vehicles.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a colleague and two drivers have been stuck since Friday morning, when they were prevented from heading to Bassein for a meeting with party supporters.

She was intending to tell party members not to obey a military order to report to the authorities twice a day under the "Habitual Offenders Act," a law reserved for those considered heinous criminals by the government.

Her party members say she has been surrounded by soldiers, sandbags and barbed wire barricades to prevent her from driving on.

Government statement

The government, however, said in a statement: "In fact, there existed none of these around the car. It is their own rigid and confrontational policy which has made them spend the night in the car."

Although the Burmese military authorities insist she is not under restriction, it is the third time recently they have stopped her leaving the Rangoon area.

On two previous trips, on 7 July and 20 July, a compromise was reached when the military brought the people Aung San Suu Kyi was attempting to see to her car.

"Aung San Suu Kyi has been free to generally move about and agitate against the government as she ever has. But of course there are limits, just as there are anywhere as to how much unrest a person or an organisation may stir up," the government said.