Malaysia today denied responsibility for air pollution in Indonesia, and in turn accused its neighbour of contributing to "unhealthy" air quality in Malaysia.

Indonesia's meteorology department said today that fires from Malaysia had contributed to the haze covering several parts of Indonesia's North Sumatra province.

A department official reportedly said winds in the past week had been blowing from the Malay peninsula towards North Sumatra.

However, Malaysia's satellite images today revealed a total of 237 hot spots in Indonesia's Sumatra island while just 70 were detected in Malaysia, a spokeswoman for the environment department told AFP .

"There are far more hotspots there than in Malaysia.

Dry spell

"And most of our hotspots are detected in areas that are blocked by a mountain range so to say we are contributing to the haze in Sumatra is not true," the spokeswoman told AFP .

She said the air pollutant index (API) at two stations in the central Selangor state around the capital Kuala Lumpur was classified as unhealthy.

"We are experiencing a very dry spell now, and it does not help that we've detected more fires here in the past two days," she said.

Malaysia last month announced an immediate ban on all forms of open burning except for cremation and religious rites, threatening offenders with a fine of RM 500,000 and five years in jail.

Choking haze, caused by fires in Indonesia, enveloped the region in 1997 and to a lesser extent in 1998 and caused major traffic and health hazards as well as an estimated 9.3 billion dollars in economic losses.