FBI officials are investigating a Bolton bank account which they say is held by an Islamic cleric accused of being a key associate of Osama bin Laden.

The account is in the name of Sheikh Abu Qatada who is wanted by the authorities in Jordan for a series of explosions. It is held at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Bolton town centre.

Earlier this week, it was frozen by the Treasury which is investigating accounts understood to total £180,000.

The FBI and British special branch officers are investigating the activities of Qatada who lives in London and has a number of aliases.

They believe he poses a "significant risk" of committing or providing material support for acts of terrorism.

It remains a mystery why an account in Qatada's name should be based in Bolton.

Incapacity benefit of £209 -- payments made to people who cannot work for reasons of sickness or disability -- was paid into the account every fortnight. That has now been stopped.

A spokesman for the social services work and pension's department said: "Sheikh Abu Qatada's assets have been frozen pending a full investigation."

Opening a bank account in a town hundreds of miles away from the one in which the claimant resides would not arouse suspicion, she said.

Leading Muslims in Bolton say they have no knowledge of Qatada other than reports in the media.

Arif Patel, spokesman for Sunni Dawate Islami -- a North-west Muslim group -- said: "Nobody I know is aware of who he is. All our information comes from television and newspapers."

Faruq Mangera, general secretary of the Bolton Council of Mosques, said: "There has never been a link between this town and bin Laden to my knowledge. I have never heard of Abu Qatada." Qatada, aged 40, is well-known to both the US and British governments and has been named on a list of 38 suspected terrorists.

Qatada entered Britain as an asylum seeker in 1993.

The FBI have refused to comment on whether he has been to Bolton during the past seven years.

A spokesman in Washington said: "He is still under investigation. We are unable to say more except that he is currently residing in London." But they described him as a "senior Bin Laden agent". Jordanian officials have sentenced the Palestinian to life imprisonment in his absence for his alleged involvement in a series of explosions in Jordan in 1998.

The Home Office said his presence in Britain was "of deep concern" to intelligence sources.

British Government officials, however, said they could not comment on any links Qatada may have with Bolton.

A Treasury spokesman said: "We cannot discuss individual bank accounts but we can confirm Qatada's assets have been frozen."

The Government admits, however, that there is little hard evidence available to bring charges against him.

Qatada, who has nine aliases and three dates of birth, lives in Acton, West London.

He denied being part of Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group. He said he only had "£624".

Qatada was born outside Bethlehem as Omar Mahmood Abu Omar. He left Jordan for Pakistan in 1989, teaching Islam at the university in Peshawar, a town that borders Afghanistan.

In 1993, he left for London and was granted asylum.

A spokesman for the Royal Bank of Scotland said: "Customer confidentiality is a legal requirement of all banks which extends to not permitting us to confide whether or not an individual is or is not a customer."