The passport of a suspected member of the terror cell that planned the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US has been recovered in Pakistan, the country's army says.

Said Bahaji's passport was found in South Waziristan, a tribal area bordering Afghanistan. A passport belonging to Raquel Gacia Burgos, the Spanish wife of a senior al-Qaeda operative, was also found, the army said.

It said the passports, which have been seen by an AFP journalist, were recovered during an offensive that it began against Islamist militants in the province, on October 17.

They were shown to journalists at a briefing in Sherwangi, along with weapons, equipment and supplies that the army said it had captured in the militants' stronghold.

The authenticity of the documents could not be immediately verified.

Bahaji is a suspected member of a cell based in Hamburg, northern Germany, that was centred around Mohammed Atta, leader of the group that carried out the September 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Centre, among other targets.

Bahaji is alleged by the FBI to have shared an apartment in Hamburg with Atta, and disappeared shortly before the attacks were carried out.

Burgos, who Spanish media report has not been seen by her family in Madrid since 2001, is the wife of Amer Azizi, a Moroccan sought for his suspected role in the March 2004 attacks on commuter trains in Madrid.

Azizi has been linked by Spanish investigators to members of the group that carried out the Madrid attacks and is considered to be one of al-Qaeda's leaders in Europe.

"Sherwangi is an important centre for the foreign terrorists, in particular the Uzbeks. There are also Chechens and Arabs," said General Khalid Rabbani, commander of 9th infantry division, which is operating in South Waziristan.