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TEHRAN: Iranian fighter jets forced an aircraft carrying US troops to land in Iran and subjected those aboard to overnight questioning after it entered its air space without permission, reports said on Tuesday.
The White House cast doubt on the veracity of the Iranian reports, which come amid tensions between the two countries over Tehran's nuclear programme, but said it was investigating.
Iran's Fars news agency said there were five soldiers and three civilians on board the aircraft who were subjected to questioning about why they had strayed into Iranian air space.
"After a day's interrogation, it emerged that the aircraft did not enter Iran intentionally and it was allowed to leave for Afghanistan," the news agency said.
State television said the aircraft was a non-American civilian plane.
"This plane was not a military plane and did not belong to the United States," an unnamed official was quoted as saying by the website of the television's Arabic-language Al-Alam channel.
"But a few US military soldiers were in the plane," the official added.
The plane was forced to land in Iran on Sunday and allowed to fly to Afghanistan on Monday, the website added.
The White House said it was looking into the Iranian reports but that it had no reason to believe they were correct.
"We're looking into the various and conflicting reports coming from the Iranian 'news' agencies, but do not have any information at this time that would lead us to believe they are correct," said spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
A spokeswoman for the US Fifth Fleet, Lieutenant Stephanie Murdock, told AFP by telephone from its base in Bahrain that "there is no report of any US military plane involved in any kind of landing in, or interaction with, Iran."
Asked if a civilian plane could have been involved, she said she could not speculate about non-military aircraft.
A Pentagon spokesman said none of its aircraft were missing.
"According to the combined air operations centre, all our aircraft are accounted for and we have no reports of any aircraft landing in Iran," said Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ryder.
Relations between Iran and the West have been strained over both Tehran's nuclear programme and US-led military operations in Iran's neighbours Iraq and Afghanistan.
In April 2007, Iran released 15 British sailors and marines whom it detained for almost two weeks saying their vessels had strayed into its waters on the maritime border with Iraq. - AFP/de
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