BERLIN -- Passports for three of Osama bin Laden's wives were found in the apartment of a Yemeni arrested last month in Pakistan and believed to have been the key contact person between the Hamburg cell of Sept. 11 plotters and al-Qaida, a German news magazine reported Saturday.

Der Spiegel, which did not cite sources, said passports for an unspecified number of bin Laden's children also were found when Ramzi Binalshibh was arrested in Karachi last month. Binalshibh is now in U.S. custody.

Binhalshibh maintains he doesn't know where bin Laden is, Der Spiegel reported, but admitted having met the bin Laden's eldest son at a party in March. The report did not name the relatives involved.

Pakistani security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed they did find passports purportedly belonging to some members of bin Laden's family, but that they were unsure whether they were genuine.

The passports were handed over to the FBI for confirmation, the officials said. They declined to say whether they have since been told that they were authentic.

Binalshibh lived for a time in Hamburg with the lead Sept. 11 suicide hijacker, Mohamed Atta, and other suspected cell members.

Der Spiegel also said Binalshibh has told U.S. investigators that a Mauritanian man, Mohamadou Ould Slahi, had in 1999 told the other two suicide pilots who lived in Hamburg -- Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah -- to attend a training camp in Afghanistan.

Ould Slahi once lived in Germany and was later put under surveillance in Canada for suspected links to foiled millennium attacks on the United States. According to Der Spiegel, he is being held at the U.S. military's high-security prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The German federal prosecutor's office declined to comment on the report.

Last week, the first trial of a Sept. 11 suspect opened in Hamburg. Moroccan student Mounir el Motassadeq, 28, is accused of aiding the plotters.

El Motassadeq denies the charges of belonging to a terrorist organization and more than 3,000 counts of being an accessory to murder. He could face life in prison if convicted.