Sydney - Australian soldiers who helped bring freedom to East Timor in 1999 also brought with them the cane toads that now plague the former Indonesian province, aid officials charged Tuesday.

"We don't know how to get them away, how to kill them," a Care International spokesman in Dili told Australia's ABC Radio.

"They should have thought about that," Simplicio Barbosa said, blaming the Australian military for the infestation.

The toxic toads were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in 1935, in a catastrophic attempt eradicate beetles that were savaging the cane crop in Queensland. They may have crossed the Timor Sea in military equipment shipped from Darwin to Dili.

Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said he would investigate Care International's claims that lax quarantine measures were to blame.

"The Australian Defence Force does have very strict quarantine controls," he said.

Cane toads are a menace because they ooze a toxic substance from their backs which kills the animals that eat them, even kangaroos.

Barbosa said the cane toads in East Timor were killing domestic chickens.

Cane toads have spread from Queensland all the way to Darwin and are well on their way to colonizing the whole of northern Australia. (dpa)