Iran today seized three British military vessels and arrested eight crew members, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

The MoD said that the eight crew were part of a Royal Navy team which had been delivering the boats to the new Iraqi Riverine Patrol Service.

A spokesman said: "The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is liasing with the Iranian government to establish whether the detained personnel are indeed the Royal Navy boat crews, and to determine the circumstances under which they have apparently been detained."

The three British ships entered Iranian territorial waters in the Iran-Iraq border area, al-Alam television said. The station is part of the state-run Iranian radio and television network.

"Iranian forces confiscated the ships and eight military personnel on board," the report said.

It said that crew members were carrying maps and weapons. It also said that the ships were seized at about 11 am today (0730 BST) between the Bahmanshir and Arvand rivers, which would put them in the Shatt al-Arab waterway east of the Iraqi city of Faw. The broadcast gave no further details.

Iranian-British relations have been strained in recent days, since London helped draft a resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors meeting last week in Vienna that rebuked Iran for past nuclear cover-ups. Iran accused Britain of caving in to American pressure.

The seizing of the boat may also be a timely warning from Tehran to the new Iraqi Government to observe international borders ahead of the handover of power on June 30.

The border between the two countries runs directly through the middle of the deepwater channel in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway. The Faw Peninsula was also the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting during the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980s.

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