"There are altogether 15 people whom I saw or for whom I have information on their survival," defected spy An Myong-Jin told Japanese lawmakers at a televised special parliamentary meeting on the abduction issue.

An, who defected in 1993, had earlier said he had seen several Japanese nationals in North Korea.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has faced domestic criticism for refusing economic sanctions against the North, said Japan could not verify An's account.

"The government is fully aware of the comments," Koizumi told reporters. "But as for Japan, there are some things we cannot confirm."

An is one of North Korea's most prominent defectors. He spends time in both South Korea and Japan, where he frequently appears on television and writes books on the North.

His testimony came as Japan insists on using the six-nation nuclear talks underway in Beijing to demand Pyongyang come clean on the kidnappings.

The other nations in the talks say that Pyongyang's nuclear program should be the main agenda of the talks, which are resuming after a 13-month hiatus.

North Korea admitted in 2002 to have kidnapped 13 Japanese up until the 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and culture.

It declared the abduction issue over after repatriating five kidnap victims along with their families and claiming that the eight others were dead.

But Japan has insisted that the eight and possibily more Japanese were still alive and kept under wraps as they knew top secrets in the secretive communist state.

It has become an emotional political issue in Japan. Koizumi has defied mounting public calls to impose economic sanctions, saying Japan must use both "dialogue and pressure" with the unpredictable state.

Megumi Yokota, who was kidnapped in 1977 at age 13, has become a symbol of the abduction tragedy due to her young age at the kidnapping and the leading role her parents have played in raising public awareness.

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