Hong Kong  - The Bank of China begun selling sets of special banknotes commemorating the Beijing Olympic Games Wednesday after tens of thousands of people besieged bank branches earlier in the week.

In an effort to control the queues, the bank issued tickets to people giving them a specify time to buy the banknotes being offered at six designated branches of the bank.

But Bank of China staff warned some customers that tickets for the most-coveted items, sheets of uncut banknotes, had already been distributed. As a result speculators were offering the free tickets and banknotes for sale on the internet.

China's central bank is selling 2.93 million sets of 20 Hong Kong dollars (2.56 dollars) in five different combinations until July 31.

A ticket entitling the holder to buy all five packages was offered for sale on the internet for 7,000 Hong Kong dollars, while sets of the 35 uncut notes, which cost 1,388 Hong Kong dollars, were being offered for up to 16,000 Hong Kong dollars.

The notes feature a Greek pillar and the Beijing Olympic logo on the front and Beijing's Olympic "Bird's Nest" stadium on the reverse.

The Bank of China also started offering special pataca-denominated Olympic bank notes through the internet in Macau Wednesday.

Some 1.46 million 20-pataca notes are being made available to holders of Macau identity cards, while non-internet users can apply for the banknotes through the bank's branches in Macau until July 31.

The bank also issued 6 million new 10-yuan notes in China to mark the Olympic Games. (dpa)