The International Committee of the Red Cross has asked the authorities in Yugoslavia for access to what it says are a considerable number of ethnic-Albanian political prisoners taken out of Kosovo by Serb forces.

A Red Cross spokesman said it hoped to receive permission soon to see the jailed ethnic-Albanians.

The United Nations human rights office in Geneva says it, too, has heard reports that the withdrawing Serb forces took between two and three thousand ethnic-Albanian prisoners with them.

It said it had asked for more information about them from the government in Belgrade.