ISLAMABAD Pakistans president and prime minister were to have had dinner at the Islamabad Marriott hotel when it was bombed but the venue was changed at the last minute, the interior ministry said on Monday.

'The national assembly speaker had arranged a dinner for the entire leadership, for the president, prime minister and armed services chiefs at the Marriott that day,' interior ministry chief Rehman Malik told reporters.

'The president and the prime minister changed the venue to the prime ministers house. The function was not held at the Marriott, thus the whole leadership was saved,' Malik added.

The hotel was instead hosting its regular meal for the breaking of the Ramadan fast at the time of the explosion.

A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with over half a tonne of explosives into the outer security gates of the luxury hotel on Saturday night, killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 260.

The Marriott hotel is close to parliament - where Pakistans new president Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday gave his first address since his election - and the residence of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Pakistani investigators say they are searching for an Islamabad-based cell of Al-Qaeda militants believed to have carried out the bombing.