VIENNA, Jan 11, 2008 (AFP) - An Austrian laboratory, suspected by the World Anti-Doping Agency of running a blood bank for doping purposes, is under scrutiny in Italy for possible involvement in doping at the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006, prosecutors here said Friday.

Vienna-based Human Plasma, which WADA suspects of supplying so-called 'dry blood' to athletes for doping purposes, is also being investigated by Italian prosecutors, said the Vienna prosecutors' spokesman Gerhard Jarosch.

'Prosecutors in Turin have sent us a request for judicial assistance with regard to this laboratory, as part of an Italian investigation,' Jarosch told AFP.

The Italian probe was launched after police raided the quarters of the Austrian nordic skiing and biathlon team during the Turin Games, seizing products and equipment which can be used for doping.

Jarosch said that Austrian police were also investigating, but the Italian request would not have any legal consequences in Austria, since doping is not a crime in this country, while it is in Italy.

Human Plasma hit the headlines earlier this week when it was revealed that WADA suspected the company of running a doping blood bank.

According to a letter from WADA's former president Dick Pound, Human Plasma was believed to process blood 'in order to prepare 'dry blood', which can then be re-injected as opposed to be transfused'.

'Our sources indicate that there are good reasons to believe that, in particular, this company supplies athletes who are re-injecting blood for doping purposes,' the letter, printed in the daily Kurier, said.

The daily Kurier said that 'a large number of athletes' from the skiing and cycling world regularly turned up at the laboratory outside regular opening hours, such as early Sunday morning.