"I want you to know that it is being looked at with all the intensity we can give to the case. I will be back in touch with you as soon as we find out any information whatsoever," Powell said.

Fabienne Nerac, the wife of missing ITN cameraman Fred Nerac, accused US forces of shooting at her husband's car and made an impassioned appeal for help to Powell, in an unexpected intervention at a NATO press conference in Brussels.

Veteran ITN war reporter Terry Lloyd was killed when the car in which he was travelling with Nerac came under fire in the desert near Basra in southern Iraq on March 22, two days after the war started.

While Lloyd's body was located at a Basra hospital, Nerac -- a French national -- and Lebanese driver-translator Hussein Osman remain missing. A second cameraman, Daniel Demoustier, survived.

ITN said that based on witness reports and an investigation it had commissioned, it knew there had been firing from both US and Iraqi forces as the white ITN vehicle drove through the area.

The letters "TV" were clearly taped onto it.

The cameraman's wife said there was still a chance her husband was alive.

"I'm hopeful. We haven't seen his body, so I'm hopeful," she said after the press conference.

Powell said he had been given an e-mail on Wednesday containing information that may help the US military locate Nerac and that he had sent it on to Iraq.

"For the last almost 18 hours now they have been hard at work trying to find out whatever they could about your husband."

Nerac's wife begged him to check further and to contact her if he had any information.

"Yes maam. I am very sensitive to this," Powell replied.

"I know... I understand your feelings and as soon as we heard of it yesterday then my planner immediately contacted the authorities in the region and asked them to look into it."

"But I give you my personal promise that we are working to find out what happened," the secretary of state said.

Speaking later, Fabienne Nerac said that Powell's response had been positive because he had given her his personal promise, but she was convinced that US troops had been firing at the time her husband disappered.

"They were surrounded by Iraqi forces and American soldiers and the Americans fired on the vehicle without seeing, or without wanting to see the 'TV' and 'Press' signs," she said.

It was understood that Nerac gained access to the high security press conference after her case was taken up by the international federation of journalists, who had spoken to the US delegation about addressing Powell.

ITN produces newcasts for ITV, Britain's main commercial television channel, as well as the smaller Channel 4 and five networks.

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