Masked kidnappers have taken 19 people hostage, including 11 Western tourists on safari in a remote desert border area of Egypt, taking them over the frontier into Sudan, Egyptian officials said yesterday.

The kidnapping was the first of its kind in Egypt in living memory, though Islamic militants have hit the country’s tourist industry in recent decades with bomb and gun attacks that have killed hundreds.

Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, said last night that all 19 had been released “safe and sound”. But officials in Cairo later said that this was not the case. “It is premature to say they are released. The negotiations are continuing,” a Cabinet spokesman said.

The abduction in Gilf al-Kabir, an area on the edge of the Sahara renowned for its prehistoric cave paintings, recalled uncomfortable memories of recurrent attacks on Egypt’s prized tourism industry, including the 1997 terror attack near Luxor when gunmen roamed the hugely popular Pharaonic temples, killing 68 foreign tourists.

The group, which included five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian, together with several local guides and drivers, were travelling in off-road vehicles near Gilf al-Kabir, about 250 miles (400km) south of Aswan, for which tourists need special travel permits to visit. The area is so isolated that officials did not seem to know exactly when the kidnapping had happened, with some German sources saying that it occurred on Friday.

The visitors had been touring the desert plateau to view its rugged landscape and admire the Neolithic cave paintings such as the Cave of the Swimmers, made famous in the 1996 film The English Patient.

In total, 19 people were seized by five masked attackers. Among those taken was the Egyptian tour company operator, who used a satellite phone to call his wife and tell her that they were being taken away by masked men speaking English “with an African accent”.

Egypt’s Tourism Minister insisted that the abduction was a criminal rather than a terrorist act. No group has taken responsibility for the crime.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry dismissed initial reports that several Israelis were among the hostages. Israel recently issued a warning to its citizens not to travel to Egypt or Jordan, the only Arab countries with which it has signed peace treaties, for fear of terrorist attacks.

Israel fears that Hamas militants may have escaped via tunnels from Gaza into Sinai, where they could carry out attacks on Israeli tourists who flock to the region’s beaches during the forthcoming Jewish holiday season. The country is on heightened alert for a revenge attack by Hezbollah, which blames the Jewish state for the murder of the head of its armed wing this year.

Sinai has been particularly badly hit by terrorist attacks in recent years, with a spate of deadly bombings on hotels in Red Sea resorts between 2004 and 2006. The deadliest attack on foreign visitors was the 1997 Luxor massacre, in which 68 people were killed. It was claimed by the extremist Muslim group Jammaa Islamiyya. To safeguard the tourism industry large numbers of police have been deployed in areas popular with foreign visitors, with guards riding on tour buses and guarding checkpoints across Sinai.

Attacks had until now been almost unheard of in the far-flung reaches of the southwest, where the Sahara washes up against a vast sandstone and limestone plateau rising 1,000ft (300m) above the Great Sand Sea near the Sudanese and Libyan borders. Known in Arabic as Gilf al-Kabir, or Great Barrier, it has been attracting more and more tourists recently, lured by its historic cave paintings, which are among the best preserved in the world.

The nearest inhabited oasis is more than 300 miles away, and visiting takes at least ten days of rough travelling in utility vehicles or by camel.

Its isolation made it an important base for British troops fighting Italian and German forces in Libya in the Second World War. The area was used as a springboard for operations by the Long Range Desert Group, the forerunner of the SAS, to carry out raids deep in enemy territory.

Egyptian tour operators were shocked as news of the kidnapping broke.

“I was surprised. I’ve been giving safari tours there since 1998, and there’s never been any problem,” said one tour operator who is based in Cairo.

“No one will want to take a desert safari soon. Tourism is such a sensitive industry.

“But it’s also far from the main places where people usually go, such as Aswan, Abu Simbel. I don’t think it will impact people going there.”

Few of the tourists outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo had even heard of the kidnapping, and most seemed undeterred about travelling to the more popular destinations.

“It seems like there’s a lot of security around here,” said Ron Sternberg, a tourist visiting from Florida, pointing to a dozen armed Egyptian police officers in front of the museum.

“I had heard Egypt was safe, and so far, I’ve had a good experience.”

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