WASHINGTON, Dec 31: The US government has no visa record of five men FBI seeks for a possible connection to a terrorist cell.

They are believed to have entered the country illegally, possibly from Canada.

“We have checked visa records. There is no record of any of the five individuals identified by the FBI as ever having applied for a US visa,” State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker told a briefing in Washington on Monday.

The State Department has tightened up its visa policies after the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. The department now has a database, called the TIPOFF, where it receives information directly from intelligence and law enforcement to prevent suspected terrorists from entering the country.

On Sunday, FBI released photographs of five men who, it said, had entered the United States illegally. Later, a White House spokesman said the FBI learned their names during an anti-terrorism investigation but said authorities were not yet certain whether they were linked to a terrorist cell.

The FBI identified them as Abid Noraiz Ali, 25, Iftikhar Khozaimi Ali, 21, Mustafa Khan Owasi, 33, Adil Pervez, 19, and Akbar Jamal, 28.

FBI says that their names came up repeatedly in domestic and overseas investigations. They might have information that may be useful in combating terrorism, the agency said.