One of more than 140 refugee camps across Darfur and neighbouring Chad and the Central African republic, home to some of the 2.5 million forced to flee by fighting since 2003. (Margaret Evans/CBC)

Diplomats from the United Nations Security Council began a visit to Darfur in western Sudan Thursday amid allegations that the "whole state apparatus" in Khartoum is involved in crimes against humanity in the region.

The allegations are in a report prepared by the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court in The Netherlands, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

About 300,000 people have died in attacks on indigenous African people in Darfur by roving Arab militias known as the janjaweed, which Moreno-Ocampo and others have said are backed by the Sudanese government.

Speaking in New York before accompanying the Security Council delegation to Darfur, Sudan's UN ambassador, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, said Moreno-Ocampo's charges were "fictitious and vicious" and harmful to the prospects for peace.

The regime in Khartoum has always denied that it encourages the janjaweed but the allegations in the ICC report are the most serious yet levelled against Sudanese authorities.

Sanctions possible: France

France's UN Security Council ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, said Europe would consider sanctions against Sudan if it refused to cooperate with the ICC by handing over two senior officials named in Moreno-Ocampo's report as suspects in crimes against humanity.

The report also says two other investigations are underway of possible Sudanese government complicity in killings in Darfur, as well as a probe into the role of rebel groups in the region in the deaths of African Union peacekeepers last year.

Facing a deepening humanitarian crises, security council ambassadors Thursday met with officers of the joint UN-African Union military force in Darfur.

The force has struggled to get up to its full strength of 26,000 troops since it was launched in January in an effort to protect some 2.5 million civilians displaced by the fighting.

One stumbling block has been the Sudanese government's reluctance to allow non-African troops into the region.

But Britain's UN ambassador, John Sawers, co-leader of the council delegation, said a Sudanese presidential adviser promised Wednesday that battalions from Asian countries could also be deployed.

No humanitarian crisis, says Sudan ambassador

In grim reports to the Security Council in late April, UN Humanitarian Chief John Holmes and the UN-AU force's envoy, Rodolphe Adada, said suffering in the western Sudanese region is worsening as fighting escalates, with tens of thousands more people uprooted from their homes.

Mohamad disagreed. "We don't think there is any humanitarian crisis in Darfur," he said.

Mohamad said Sudan seeks a negotiated solution with Darfur rebels who rose up against the Khartoum government in 2003.

Council members are to meet Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir Thursday night.

With files from the Associated Press