Interior Ministry officials in Kazakhstan say three male psychiatric nurses have been arrested and charged with murdering at least four prostitutes.

But the officials said they could not confirm reports that the accused had eaten the flesh of the women.

A ministry spokesman Aman Ismailov said the nurses, who worked in a hospital in the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty, lured the women to their homes, and drugged them before killing them.

He said the men would be undergoing psychiatric examination.