Bin Laden's daughter "in Saudi embassy in Tehran"

Manouchehr Mottaki spoke a day after the Times newspaper reported that some of bin Laden's closest relatives, including children, were living in a secret compound in Iran.

A daughter called Iman had recently escaped during a rare trip outside the compound and made her way to the Saudi Arabian embassy, the Times said. She is now living there while seeking permission to leave Iran, it said.

"We were informed by the Saudi Arabian embassy ... some time ago that one of bin Laden's daughters is in the Saudi embassy in Tehran," Mottaki said on state television.

"We do not know how the individual ... entered the Saudi embassy and Iran in the first place. Her real identity is not yet clear to us," he said. "Upon determination of her real identity she will be able to leave Iran with proper permits."

Mottaki made no reference to any other relatives of bin Laden living in Iran.

The Times said the group included a wife and children who disappeared from bin Laden's Afghan camp at the time of the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

It said other relatives found out last month that the group, including one of bin Laden's wives, six of his children and 11 of his grandchildren had been kept in a high-security compound outside Tehran for the past eight years.

The Times quoted Omar bin Laden, 29, who it said was the al Qaeda leader's fourth-oldest son, as saying he had no idea that his brothers and sisters were still alive until they called him in November.

They told him how they had fled Afghanistan just before the 9/11 attacks and walked to the Iranian border. They were taken to a walled compound outside Tehran where guards said they were not allowed to leave "for their own safety."