WikiLeaks founder accused with rape, molestation in Sweden

Swedish prosecutor's office spokeswoman Karin Rosander told CNN the charges had been filed yesterday night, but could not provide further details.

Assange denied the charges in a posting today on the WikiLeaks Twitter page, saying: "The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing."

Assange was in Sweden last weekend, but Rosander was quoted as saying it was “not clear whether he is still in the country”. She added how police had been “unable so far” to make contact with Assange.

An elusive figure, Assange reportedly lived part-time in Sweden. He had told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in an interview published on Monday that he had chosen Sweden to host several servers for WikiLeaks because of the country's privacy laws.

He had also told the paper that he had been in Sweden because he wanted a safe place to go after the high-profile leak of US documents related to the war in Afghanistan.

WikiLeaks had sparked major controversy by posting some 76,000 pages of those documents online last month, in what had been called the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War.