Warsaw - New details emerged on Tuesday in an incest case which has shocked Poland.

A 45-year-old man, who was arrested on Monday, has been charged with repeatedly raping his daughter over a period of six years, and with imprisoning her during that time.

Details of the charges emerged which appeared to temper the original reporting of the case after national media had labelled the man as the "Polish Josef Fritzl," referring to the Austrian incest case which came to light in April.

Media reports Monday had suggested the woman - identified only as Alice as her last name was withheld in accordance to Polish law - was held captive for six years until she reported the abuse last week.

But a regional prosecutor said on Tuesday that she had not been confined continuously for six years, but once for over a week and a second time for two weeks, reported TVP Info.

Police said Alice, aged 21, also gave birth to two boys in 2005 and 2007 that were likely the result of rape, and who were immediately given up for adoption. The man first allegedly raped his daughter when she was 14, prosecutors said.

Police investigating the case in Siemiatycze, near the Belarus border, launched their search after the woman came in with her mother a week ago to make a report. They said the father tried to flee abroad, possibly to Italy, before he was apprehended.

The mother said she did not come forward earlier because the man threatened to kill them both if the secret came out. She told Polish TV she was driven to seek help because "it was simply too much. My daughter couldn't take it psychologically."

"I noticed something wasn't right when my daughter began growing up," the mother told the daily Wyborcza. "He touched her where he shouldn't have. And when I wanted to talk to him about it, he said, 'I have a right to her!' As if she was his object."

The daughter said music and books from a local library helped her live through the ordeal.

The father never allowed them to work, she told the daily, but now she wants to stay in the village, find a job and begin a new life when the affair quiets down.

"I wonder how he feels now," Alice told Wyborcza. "Always when I ran away, when I wandered, he came to me and said, 'I won.' And now I won. May he rot in that slammer," she said. (dpa)