President Hamid Karzai's government has demanded a review of the presence of US and NATO troops in the country.

The government wants the review to include the use of airstrikes in civilian areas, following allegations that large number of civilians have died in raids and airstrikes by foreign forces in recent weeks.

In a harshly worded statement, the government ordered its ministries of foreign affairs and defense to ask for status of forces agreements and negotiate a possible end to "air strikes on civilian targets, uncoordinated house searches and illegal detention of Afghan civilians."

Aid worker kidnapped

Meanwhile, Afghan security forces were on Tuesday battling suspected Taliban rebels to try to free a Japanese national kidnapped in the east of the country, police said.

An Afghan driver kidnapped with the Japanese man had been freed, provincial police spokesman Abdul Ghafoor Khan told AFP, adding about 300 security forces were involved in the fighting in Nangarhar province's Kuz Kunar district.

"The operation is ongoing right now. We have recovered the Afghan driver but the Japanese has not been found yet," Khan told AFP.

The non-governmental organisation for which the two men worked confirmed the driver had been freed.

"The driver is recovered. He is found but not the Japanese national," Noor Zaman, deputy manager of a provincial branch of the Peshawar-kai (Peshawar Medical Services), told AFP.

The hardline Taliban militia, behind a growing insurgency in Afghanistan, claimed the men were captured by its fighters.

"We kidnapped a Japanese and his Afghan interpreter. As we were taking them, government forces attacked us," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told AFP.

Fighting was continuing and two Taliban had been wounded, he claimed. The Japanese national was Kazuya Ito, 31, said Mitsuji Fukumoto, an official with the NGO in Japan.

The Peshawar-kai group provides medical care in Afghanistan and Pakistan.