According to Austrian historians, the mass grave discovered in a forest near Lese, a village a few kilometres from the Austrian border, probably contains the bodies of some 100 Austrians, the Austrian news agency APA said on Tuesday.

They are believed to have been arrested by Tito's Partisans towards the end of the war in the Austrian state of Carinthia and then transferred to Yugoslavia, where they are believed to have been killed.

Marko Strovs, head of the Slovenian government commission for locating and marking mass graves from the WW2 and post-war period, told Slovenian media that the site near Lese was probed and researched in the middle of last week. Based on previous witness statements, it was assumed the grave contained the remains of people killed after WW2.

Strovs said the 21-metre long and 3-metre wide pit likely contained some 700 bodies, which surprised investigators who had expected some 100 corpses.

He said the victims were male and female civilians killed towards the end of May 1945. They were brought to Lese in trucks and forced to walk to the execution site.

They were killed kneeling, with hands tied behind their backs, and some bodies revealed traces of gunshot wounds, said Strovs.

The Slovenian media said the victims probably included wealthy Slovenians from that area whom the Communist authorities considered class enemies.

The mass grave has been included on a list of more than 600 hidden and mass graves from the war and post-war period found in Slovenia to date.

Strovs said further investigation was unlikely as it was assumed the perpetrators were dead, adding the bodies might remain there or be exhumed and transferred to a cemetery.

Slovenian media said the victims might be identified through the DNA of their living relatives.