DNA tests indicate that there is a high probability that a boy held in a state child protection facility is the son of Clara Rojas, a hostage of leftist rebels who gave birth to the boy in captivity, Colombian Attorney General Mario Iguaran said Friday.

After meeting with other high government officials in the northern Colombian city of Santa Marta, Iguaran said the tests carried out by Colombian authorities will be complemented by laboratory tests in Europe.

The young Emmanuel, thought to be three-and-a-half, was to have been handed over by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez along with his mother and former legislator Consuelo Gonzalez in a high-profile operation.

However, FARC called off the operation on Monday, claiming that military activity in the jungle prevented them from handing over their hostages.

In a startling turn of events, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe immediately made public the hypothesis that FARC did not have the boy at all - and that was the reason it cancelled the handover.

Testing has now confirmed that Juan David Gomez Tapiero, who has lived in a state child protection facility since 2005, is likely to be Rojas' son - whom she reportedly named Emmanuel.

Clara Rojas is thought to have conceived the boy within a consented relationship with a rank-and-file rebel. According to a former hostage who escaped from FARC last year, the baby suffered health problems and generally caused difficulties for the mobility and the discretion of rebels and other hostages in the Colombian jungle.

Due to the boy's poor health, FARC is thought to have handed him over to a peasant family in the southern town of San Jose del Guaviare, and the authorities took Emmanuel from the family given that his condition appeared to indicate that he was being mistreated.

FARC had allegedly asked the peasants to return the boy by December 30, 2007.

Colombian authorities took DNA samples from several members of Rojas' family earlier this week.

Rojas was the running-mate of former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who holds dual French-Colombian citizenship and is the most high-profile hostage among hundreds being held by FARC.