JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Israeli branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre on Sunday criticised Sweden and several other countries, saying they failed to hunt down and prosecute perpetrators of the Holocaust.

The centre's 10th annual report on efforts to hunt down Nazis accuses a raft of nations of failing to hold perpetrators of the Holocaust accountable and refusing to prosecute or investigate alleged Nazis.

The Los Angeles-based centre criticises "the failures of countries like Austria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the Ukraine, which have consistently failed to hold any Holocaust perpetrators accountable."

It said Sweden and Norway refuse to investigate or prosecute alleged Nazis because of a statute of limitations, and accused Syria of failing to deal "effectively" with alleged Holocaust perpetrators for "lack of the requisite political will."

"Austria's inaction is the most shocking because a large number of Nazi war criminals are originally from there," the centre's director Efraim Zoroff told Israeli public radio.

The report, which adds three new names to the centre's list of most-wanted alleged Nazi war criminals, said "lack of political will" remained the greatest obstacle to bringing cases against accused Nazis.

But the centre praised the efforts of the United States, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Serbia, and highlighted Hungary's decision to prosecute Sandor Kepiro, who is accused of organising the mass death of 1,250 people in Serbia in January 1942.

At the top of the centre's list of alleged war criminals is Alois Brunner, who is accused of being a key operative for Adolf Eichmann and of responsibility for the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews.

Brunner's last known address is in Syria, the centre said, but the report acknowledged that "the chances of his being alive are relatively slim."

The centre's report was released as Israel prepared to observe Holocaust Day on Monday, when the entire nation will come to a standstill for two minutes of silence to remember the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust.