A UN expert has said Albania is holding up inquiries into reports that Serbs captured during the 1998-99 Kosovo war were butchered for their organs there.

UN special rapporteur Philip Alston said the Council of Europe, Serbia and the EU authorities in Kosovo were all investigating the reports.

He called on Albania to allow an independent inquiry.

Albanian PM Sali Berisha has dismissed the allegations as fiction and says they have already been investigated.

International attention was drawn to the alleged crimes in 2008 when former UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte revealed in her memoirs that her team had investigated reports that around 300 Serbs held in Albania had had organs removed, apparently for sale to foreign clinics.