Colombia said it still hoped to see hostages released by leftist rebels, but would reject the broad international involvement seen in late December for the thwarted release of three captives.

Rebels had said they would hand the hostages -- two women and a child -- to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez over Christmas or New Year but the handover never took place because they did not have the child as they claimed.

"We are examining the possibility that the FARC will fulfill their pledge to free Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez," the two women hostages, Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo said on the radio station Caracol on Monday.

"In this case we will facilitate this operation, but without accepting the presence of international humanitarian commissions."

A slew of international witnesses, including representatives from the presidents of France, Brazil, and Argentina, flew to a central Colombian city to help supervise the release that never took place.

The three year-old boy was found to be not in the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as they had claimed, but at a government-run orphanage in Bogota.

Araujo said the decision had been taken because foreign participation gave the FARC undue credibility in the eyes of the international community while casting Bogota in an unfavorable light.

The Colombian government permitted the international participation in the planned handover "in an act of transparency and openness," Araujo said.

But delegates appeared biased toward the rebels, "always skeptical of information given by the government and taking as real the lies of the FARC."

"Under such conditions we consider that these commissions serve only to create a favorable climate for the FARC in the international community, and believe we must nip this in the bud," Araujo said.

The FARC has been fighting for decades against the government, which says the rebels hold hundreds of hostages.

Rojas was a top aide to Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, also held by the FARC. Her son Emmanuel, three, was born of an allegedly consensual relationship with a FARC fighter. Consuelo Gonzalez de Perdomo is a former legislator.

The FARC for years has been seeking to swap some 500 imprisoned guerrillas for more than 40 high-profile hostages, including Rojas and Betancourt, kidnapped in February 2002, three American contractors, and numerous Colombian legislators, mayors, governors and military officers.

Araujo said any future handover would involve the International Committee of the Red Cross as a mediator, not other countries.