Vienna - A blood centrifuge that was allegedly used to dope Austrian cyclist Bernhard Kohl has been possibly found in Budapest, Austrian police said Monday.

Investigations were ongoing to confirm whether the machine found Saturday by Hungarian police in a private home was the one operated by Kohl's former manager Stefan Matschiner, according to a police spokesperson in Vienna.

According to media reports, Matschiner has admitted to having helped Kohl as well as banned Austrian triathlete Lisa Huetthaler by providing performance-enhancing blood doping services.

The former manager is currently being held in custody after Huetthaler and Kohl told police they received not only blood doping from him, but also a range of other banned substances.

Kohl said last week that he had bought the centrifuge together with two other professional athletes, and that he had also received blood doping in the Vienna laboratory Humanplasma.

The cyclist has been stripped of his third place in the 2008 Tour de France after being caught doping with the latest generation of the blood booster EPO, known as CERA.

Humanplasma, the alleged supplier of Kohl's centrifuge, is coming under increased scrutiny, as the daily Kurier on Monday cited a damaging report by the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety.

"There is a strong suspicion that a maximum of 300 units of concentrates of red blood cells were produced on Humanplasma's premises between autumn 2003 and spring
2006," the report said.

Some 90 per cent of the materials used for making the blood products were unaccounted for, according to the agency. An agency official told German Press Agency dpa on Monday that it had in fact produced such a report.

Blood doping was not illegal until last August in Austria, but prosecutors have said they might restart an investigation into Humanplasma's activities following the recent developments.

Blood doping substances and blood transfusions are illegal under international doping rules. (dpa)