At least 11 people have died, and 15 are injured and in hospital, after a fire set buildings ablaze at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

The blaze broke out soon after midnight in a detention centre at the airport.

The building houses people awaiting deportation from the Netherlands. Police say they are looking for prisoners who may have escaped.

The Dutch news agency ANP reported the fire was not contained for several hours, and the death toll could rise.

ANP said that there were around 350 people being held in the detention centre when the fire broke out.

Escape

The cause of the blaze is still unknown.

Forty-three people were said to be in the wing that caught fire. All those confirmed dead are detainees, although there are some firefighters and police among the injured.

An inmate at the centre told Dutch media that guards had initially ignored their warnings of a fire.

"They didn't open the door. They kept us locked up. Our throats started hurting. We were kicking and screaming," the prisoner said.

A spokesman for the prosecutors' office, Martin Bruinsma, told AFP news agency the emergency services had acted "very quickly", but that cell doors could only be opened manually, one at a time.

Helicopters were being used to search for several detainees who are believed to have escaped from the centre. Police said three were arrested trying to escape.

The block, located on the east side of the airport, is surrounded by a 3m barbed wire fence.

Hundreds of cocaine smugglers, mostly from the Netherlands Antilles and other parts of the Caribbean, are detained at the airport every year, along with illegal immigrants awaiting deportation.

PHOTO CAPTION

Emergency workers are seen at the scene of a fire at a detention centre at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Netherlands, October 27, 2005. (Reuters)