New Zealand gave warning of a possible environmental disaster in the Antarctic today after the flagship of the Japanese whaling fleet caught fire in the sea off the world's largest penguin breeding site.

The blaze on board the Nisshin Maru, the so-called "mother ship" that travels with Japan's whale-hunting vessels, is under control, according to New Zealand's Conservation Minister, but there is still danger that some of the 1.3 million litres of oil on board will leak into the otherwise clean southern seas.

The ship is adrift around 110 miles (174km) south west of Cape Adare on the Ross Sea coast of the Antarctic: where around 250,000 pairs of penguins gather to breed each year. It is 267 miles (429km) north of the American McMurdo base, the largest in Antarctica, which is set amongst colonies of skua, emperor and adlie penguins.

"It is a serious situation ... a ship badly damaged and full of toxic oil," Chris Carter told New Zealand's National Radio after a news conference in Wellington.

"We don’t need to stress that this is an extremely pristine environment with high biodiversity values. We think there is up to 1,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil on board the vessel, as well as many other chemicals. From an environmental point of view we are very concerned should there be any leakage into the Ross Sea."

Mr Carter said that fellow signatories to the Antarctic Treaty -- Japan, Australia, United States and Britain -- were poised to launch an international rescue effort if conditions on board the Nisshin Maru deteriorated.

The 8,000-ton vessel, which processes the whale carcasses caught by the outriding hunting ships, caught fire yesterday. The blaze erupted below decks and, apparently fuelled by whale oil, led to the evacuation of majority of its 148-member crew, of whom one is missing. The captain has stayed aboard with 30 crew members to close hatches and fight the fire with water pumped from the ocean.

Mr Carter said he had been informed by Japanese authorities that the ship was listing and drifting without power, but there was no immediate risk of the leakage of the 500,000 litres of heavy oil and 800,000 litres of furnace oil on board. The seas are presently calm but notorious for extreme storms.

Steve Corbett, a spokesman for Maritime New Zealand, said his agency had been in constant contact with the ship’s captain and was on stand-by to help. So far, the other three ships in the whaling fleet have provided support to the stricken vessel.

"The master advises he has the situation under control," said Mr Corbett who cautioned that there was "still some potential" that the fire could flare up again.

"The fire is below decks, below the bridge and above the engine room," Mr Corbett told Reuters. "It is not out, it is still going, but its contained in the factory space. It’s a serious fire. What they have done is seal off the area and they will let it burn itself out. The temperature is dropping, that’s good news."

Lou Sanson, the chief executive of Antarctica New Zealand, said he had been in touch with other countries with bases on the coast to be on the alert for possible oil leakage. Of the penguin colonies at Cape Adare he told the Associated Press: "It’s a long way off the coast but the currents do go that way. We’re very concerned about what could happen."

The fire is the latest incident of an eventful week for Japan's whaling fleet and international lobbyists. On Monday, a whaling ship, the Kaiko Maru, was involved in a collision with a protest vessel belonging to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a militant environmentalist group.

The ships crashed in a field of icebergs in the Ross Sea as the Kaiko Maru closed in on a pod of whales and blamed each other for the ramming. The crash came after Japanese whalers assisted in the search for two Sea Shepherd sailors who were lost in a dinghy in the icy waters for seven hours last Friday.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo, delegates from the world's pro-whale hunting countries have been meeting to plan their strategy for the next meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Anchorage later this year.

The Japanese Government is intent on overturning the moratorium on commercial whaling that has been in place since 1986. So far, with the help of landlocked countries such as Mongolia and tiny island states like Tuvalu and Kiribati, Japan has corralled a simple majority in the group but remains short of the three-quarters needed to end the ban.

Today Joji Morishita, Japan’s alternate commissioner to the IWC, threatened to pull out of the commission, which Japan believes has been hijacked by anti-whaling countries such as the UK and New Zealand, unless there is a resumption of dialogue in Anchorage in May. Twenty-seven anti-whaling countries boycotted this week's meeting.

"From Anchorage, some sort of positive movement needs to take place or we will have to rethink our options," said Mr Morishita.

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