Pressure is building on the Thai Government to investigate claims that the military left hundreds of asylum-seekers to die after setting them adrift in boats with no engines.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, Thailand's new Prime Minister, today met officials from human rights groups to discuss their reports over the weekend that that up to 1,000 refugees from Burma were towed out to sea and abandoned in open water, with their hands bound and with little food and water. Indian officials and regional newspapers said that at least 500 refugees from the Muslim ethnic minority Rohingya group had died in the open boats.

Buddhipongse Punnakanta, the deputy government spokesman, said Mr Abhisit met members of the National Human Rights Commission today to discuss the matter.

"The Prime Minister told the commission not to worry about the Rohingya case," he told reporters. "He assigned all the government authorities involved to keep him up-to-date."

Indian officials have told reporters that they have rescued hundreds of Rohingya refugees, who are stateless and persecuted by the Burmese military regime.

"They said they were taken to an island off the Thai coast and beaten up before being forced into boats and pushed into the high seas," said Ranjit Narayan, a police official on India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Coast guard commander S. P Sharma said that India had rescued 446 refugees from four boats since the end of December. "We fear several hundred are still missing," he told the Bangkok Post.

Mr Sharma said the migrants told him they had been arrested by Thai officials and set adrift without engines or navigational equipment. "Some survivors also said their boat was towed out to sea by the Thai navy and given two sacks of boiled rice and two gallons of water before being abandoned in the middle of the sea," he said.

One survivor told the paper: "We were tied up and put into a boat without an engine . . . we were then towed into the high seas by a motor boat and set adrift."

Survivors told Indian officials they were promised jobs in Thailand and Indonesia by agents in Bangladesh.

"Soon after they set sail they were captured by some men wearing what they described as Thai army and navy uniforms. After their capture they said they were taken to an island off the Thai coast and beaten up before being forced into boats and pushed into the high seas," Mr Narayan said.

Government ministers and senior military officials strenuously denied the claims. Suthep Thaugsuban, the deputy Prime Minister, said: "I was primarily informed that the soldiers did not do that.

"I myself believe the officers did not do such a thing because Thai people have generosity and kindness," he told reporters

Supreme Commander General Songkitti Jaggabatara said: "I can confirm that the Thai armed forces never use any inhumane treatment. "The allegations have no substance."

Thousands of Rohingyas attempt to flee Burma each year, crowding into often unseaworthy boats and braving treacherous seas to try to reach Muslim majority Malaysia.

Thailand is facing a brutal separatist insurgency in the south of the country that has left more than 3,500 people dead in the past five years. Thai security forces are concerned that the Rohingya refugees coming ashore at Thailand might include Islamic militants.

Kitty McKinsey from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said if the allegations were true, Thailand would be breaching human-rights conventions.

Times Recommends

• Times Charity Appeal: SolarAid
• Is it Black Monday all over again for Dubai?
• Behind the scenes at the biggest deal