The FBI is facing accusations that it inadvertently helped Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch prime suspect in the 2005 murder of an American teenager, fly to Peru where he is alleged to have confessed to killing another woman last week.

According to Associated Press, US authorities delayed arresting Van der Sloot despite the fact that they had already reopened the case of Natalee Holloway, who disappeared from the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba five years ago. The FBI is also accused of having given him $15,000 in a sting operation that was designed to build a murder case against him over Holloway's disappearance.

He is alleged to have killed Stephany Flores at a casino hotel in Lima on 30 May, five years to the day after Holloway disappeared while on a school trip to the Caribbean island. AP said it based its report on two unidentified federal law enforcement officials. There was no immediate response from the Alabama FBI office handling the Holloway case.