International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC) on Wednesday urged India to release six passenger planes that it had leased to grounded Kingfisher Airlines.

Henri Courpron, chief executive of Los Angeles-based aircraft finance giant ILFC, alleged that the planes were held `hostage' by a bureaucratic dispute following Kingfisher's failure to pay for them.

Courpron claimed that the Delhi High Court had allowed ILFC in February to access its aircrafts to make sure that they can be maintained.

Speaking on the issue in a telephone interview, he said, "We have made legal and political progress but people are not following instructions from the government. We have to stop this hostage situation."

ILFC wants to fly the planes out of India so that they can be used by some other operators. But that is not possible without the consent of Indian authorities.

However, Courpron did not say which Indian authorities or people were responsible for the alleged "hostage" situation.

In January, ILFC had warned that India's failure to return its aircrafts could put the growth of the country's aviation sector at risk by frightening away funding.

Vijay Mallaya-promoted Kingfisher Airlines, which has never reported a profit in it's nearly a decade-old history, has not been operating since late October. It is burdened with an accumulated debt and losses of more than Rs 15,000 crore.