Mobile phone text messages seeking financial aid for Acehnese orphans made homeless by last month's tsunamis and offering them up for adoption are possibly a hoax, Malaysian police said today.

"So far, our preliminary investigations found that no children are offered for sale. We think the messages are a hoax," Deputy Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan told AFP.

He said police would continue to investigate the matter but urged the public to ignore such messages.

The United Nations Children's Fund warned Tuesday that human traffickers were preying on some 35,000 children made homeless, orphaned or separated from their parents in Aceh, which is in ruins after Dec 26 tsunamis destroyed much of the province's west coast.

Unicef receives SMS ad

Unicef's spokesman for Indonesia, John Budd, has told AFP there had been a confirmed case of a child being smuggled out of Aceh to nearby North Sumatran capital of Medan for trafficking purposes.

He said Unicef's Malaysian office had received an SMS advertising 300 orphans from Aceh aged between three and 10 who could be bought.

"Three hundred orphans aged three to 10 years from Aceh for adoption. All paperwork will be taken care of. No fee. Please state age and sex of child required," the message read. A phone number provided in the SMS could not be reached, connecting only to a voice mail.

The government has announced a ban on adoption amid a number of reports that human traffickers were spiriting children out of Aceh.