KIEV: Ukraine's deputy foreign minister said Tuesday that one of the country's jets had been hijacked at Kabul airport earlier this month in a version of events later denied by his own ministry.

Yevgeny Yenin told the independent Hromadske radio station that a Ukrainian plane had been "hijacked" in Kabul and flown to Iran "with a group of unknown passengers on board, instead of evacuating Ukrainians."

Yenin confirmed to AFP that the incident took place on August 15 and that the plane subsequently returned to Ukraine.

But his comments were then denied by the foreign ministry.

"There are no Ukrainian planes hijacked in Kabul or elsewhere," spokesman Oleg Nikolenko told AFP, saying that Yenin's words "do not correspond to reality".

He said three planes - two civilian and one military - that Kiev chartered to evacuate its citizens from Afghanistan "safely returned to Ukraine" carrying a total of 256 passengers.

A source in the government told AFP that Kiev had been negotiating to include the aircraft mentioned by Yenin - a civilian Ukrainian plane - in its evacuation operations but was not able to do so after the plane left without warning last week.