The Corriere della Sera, quoting an official report, said the head of the group that kidnapped Sgrena, named as Sheikh Hussein, had told the US military just after her release that the car would blow up at a checkpoint on Baghdad's notorious airport highway.

The paper said the source of the information was Mustafa Mohammed Salman, held on suspicion of kidnapping British charity worker Margaret Hassan, who was seized in Baghdad in October 2004 and found dead a month later.

Salman allegedly identified Hussein, described as a Sunni imam, as being behind the abduction of Hassan, Sgrena and French journalist Florence Aubenas, who was freed in June 2005 after six months in captivity.

Corriere della Sera said Salman's statement, contained in a report by the Italian police commissioned by the Rome judiciary investigating Calipari's death, needed to be carefully checked to ensure it was correct.

Calipari was killed and Sgrena and their chauffeur wounded as their car approached a US checkpoint after the Italian secret service succeeded in securing her release on March 4 last year.

Italian prosecutors have charged a US soldier, Mario Lozano, with homicide, but their US counterparts have dropped the case, saying that the car had not slowed down at the checkpoint as it should have.

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