RABAT, MOROCCO - NINE Islamists on the run for more than a week after escaping their Moroccan jail built a 22m long tunnel from a cell's toilet, the country's justice minister said on Tuesday.

Interpol has launched a worldwide security alert to capture the men, who were convicted of the 2003 Casablanca bombings which killed 45.

'Starting from a cell toilet, they hollowed out a tunnel 60 centimetres in diameter, 22 metres long and two metres underground,' Abdelouahed Radi told the Moroccan Senate. 'There was negligence,' he admitted.

The minister did not reveal how long it took to build the tunnel, nor the methods used, nor where it came out. According to reports from some local residents, the end of the tunnel emerged into the garden of the director of the prison, at Kenitra, north of Rabat.

The Islamist prisoners - one of whom was facing a death sentence - escaped at dawn on April 7, leaving a note exonerating the prison guards and other prisoners.

Mr Radi told the Senate there was also a problem of prison overcrowding and a serious lack of guards.

'There are currently 56,000 inmates, of whom one third are drug traffickers. There are only 5,500 guards,' he said.

Mr Radi added that there was an urgent need to build more prisons, and to use preventive detention less often.

Interpol has now published the names and pictures of the escapees on its website, issuing a 'Orange Notice' alert worldwide to catch them.

Sent to Interpol's 186 national bureaus, the notice 'includes the names and photographs of the convicted terrorists, all essential elements to help law enforcement officers working in their search and eventual verification of their identity when located and arrested', Interpol said in a statement on Sunday.

As well as the bomber sentenced to death, six others had been given life imprisonment and two were given 20 years in jail for their role in the blasts.

The Casablanca bombing death toll of 45 includes 12 suicide bombers.