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A 73-YEAR-OLD Austrian man has confessed to holding his daughter captive for 24 years and fathering seven children with her.

"He (Josef Fritzl) has now said that he locked up his daughter for 24 years and that he alone fathered her seven children and that he locked them up in the cellar,`` Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria, said.

Police are still searching the family house in Amstetten, east Austria, where the woman, Elisabeth Fritzl, and her children were held prisoner by her father in three cramped underground rooms.

Earlier today, police said Elisabeth, 42, told them her father had lured her into the basement of the block where they lived in the town of Amstetten in 1984, and drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her.

Three of her children were locked up since birth in the basement of the drab, grey building along with their mother and had never seen sunlight or received any education, police said.

"Beyond one`s imagination"

Authorities in Amstetten, 130km west of Vienna, were still piecing together details of the case, reminiscent of that of Austrian Natascha Kampusch who spent eight years locked up in a windowless cell before escaping in August 2006.

"We are faced with a crime that is incomprehensible,`` Interior Minister Guenther Platter said on Austrian television.

"Everything that has happened here goes beyond one`s imagination``.

Austrian papers asked today how the local community could have been unaware of what was going on in the basement of the housing block.

"It is not going to be possible to go back to everyday normality after this,`` the daily Der Standard wrote in an editorial.

"The whole country must ask itself just what is really, fundamentally going wrong,`` the paper said.

Sophisticated hideout

Josef, an electrical engineering technician by training, told investigators how to enter the basement prison through a hidden door operated by secret code, police said.

"There was a shelf with plenty of cans and containers, and behind the shelf was a door made of reinforced concrete, secured electronically and running on steel rails, and only the suspect knew the code,`` local official Heinz Lenze said.

The hideout itself was a sophisticated network of chambers with facilities for sleeping, cooking and washing, Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria, told broadcaster ORF.

Authorities were still searching the cellar early today, the Austrian press agency APA reported, adding that some of the rooms were no more than 1.7 metres high.

APA said police were investigating a "padded cell`` in the cellar, quoting senior district official Hans-Heinz Lenze.

Mother "unaware"

Josef`s wife Rosemarie had been unaware of what happened to her daughter and it was assumed Elisabeth had disappeared voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her saying they should not search for her.

Elisabeth gave birth to seven children during her ordeal, one of whom died shortly after being born, police said.

Three of the younger children were brought up by Josef and his wife after they were left at the building, the first child accompanied by a note from Elisabeth saying she was unable to care for the baby herself.

Three others, including the two eldest aged 18 and 19, and the youngest, aged five, had been locked up in the basement with their mother since birth.

The case only came to light when the oldest child became seriously ill and was taken to the local hospital. Josef said that child had also been left unconscious on his doorstep, according to media reports.

A 19-year-old girl, who was seriously ill and is still fighting for her life, was dropped off last weekend at the hospital.

Doctors appealed for the girl`s mother, who at that time was believed to have disappeared, to come forward to provide more details about the daughter`s medical history.

Josef then brought Elisabeth and her remaining two children out of the basement, telling his wife that their "missing`` daughter had chosen to return home, police said.

Comprehensive statement

"This is not a mother abandoning her child which then had to be admitted to hospital in a serious condition ... We know that she herself has been kept imprisoned by her own father for 24 years in the basement and furthermore she obviously was also subjected to sexual abuse,`` Polzer said.

After questioning and assurances that she would have no further contact with her father - who she said abused her from the age of 11 - Elisabeth agreed to make a "comprehensive statement``.

Rosemarie, as well as Elisabeth and her children were receiving psychological counselling. DNA samples of all those involved were taken and would be analysed, police said.

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