Vienna- Austrian legal scholars questioned their government's opposition to hosting former Guantanamo inmates on Tuesday, but cabinet members shrugged off their opinions and suggested that the detainees could pose a public danger.

The Austrian government has argued that welcoming the terrorism suspects would cause a "systemic break" in Austrian law, but it has kept open the possibility for former prisoners to seek refugee status on an individual basis.

But Gerhard Muzak, an asylum expert at the University of Vienna, reminded political leaders that Austrian law provided for the option to grant asylum status to a group of people.

"It's a question of goodwill," Bernd-Christian Funk, a constitutional law expert, told Austrian press agency APA.

Interior Minister Maria Fekter repeated her government's position that the fate of the prisoners was an "American problem." She asked why the inmates should not be considered a danger to Europe when the United States considered them dangerous.

During the war in Bosnia in the 1990s, the government decided to take in Bosnian refugees.

The European Union had long called for closing the detention centre for alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and welcomed the decision last week by new US President Barack Obama to prepare its closure by the end of the year.

Besides Austria, Britain, Denmark and Poland have spoken out against hosting some of the freed prisoners in their countries. (dpa)