EULEX said in a statement on Monday that a special team would lead investigations into allegations which former Swiss senator Dick Marty made in a report on trafficking in human organs presented to the Council of Europe last December. In the wake of the report, EULEX launched a preliminary investigation on January 27.

Marty, a Council of Europe special rapporteur who was investigating abductions, tortures and the theft of organs of Serbs and Albanians arrested in Kosovo and detained in northern Albania, accused former Albanian guerilla chief and incumbent Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci of organising the entire operation, the British daily Guardian reported earlier, citing Marty's report.

The report says that after the war, persons close to Thaci secretly took prisoners, mainly Serbs, across the border into Albania, where some were killed for their kidneys, which were sold on the black market. According to the Guardian, the organs were harvested at the Medicus private clinic in Pristina.

In late October, EULEX indicted five persons involved in trafficking in human organs.

Thaci has denied on a number of occasions any involvement in this case, while Belgrade has asked a number of times for an independent probe under the UN's aegis.

The probe, which covered Kosovo and northern Albania, was prompted by claims by former Hague war crimes tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte.

According to Serbian media, the investigation covers the fate of about 300 people gone missing after international troops arrived in Kosovo in June 1999, people assumed to have been killed in camps in northern Albania.