Swedish prosecutors said they will pursue an international arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a rape investigation.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange listens during a news conference on the internet release of secret documents about the Iraq War, in London October 23, 2010. [Xinhua]

Thursday's announcement came after a Stockholm court approved prosecutors' request to detain Assange for questioning in the case, which stems from his encounters with two Swedish women in August.

Assange is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. He has denied the allegations.

Director of Public Prosecution Marianne Ny told The Associated Press on Thursday that she will seek Assange's arrest through Interpol. His whereabouts were not immediately clear.

Assange came to Sweden in August seeking to stay because his website servers are in the country but his application was denied in October. During his stay, he was accused of raping and molesting two women. He has denied the allegations.

Assange said the allegations are a smear campaign by the Pentagon against him because he released thousands of classified U.S. war reports from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Court documents filed by prosecutors allege that Assange is suspected of raping and sexually molesting a woman in the town of Enkoping. He also was suspected of the sexual molestation and unlawful coercion of a second woman in Stockholm.

The two women attended a seminar held by Assange and six days later, they both launched the allegations, the court document said.

A Stockholm prosecutor started a rape investigation immediately but the case was dropped the next day.

WikiLeaks last month published an unprecedented 400,000 classified US documents on the Iraq war and posted 77,000 secret U.S. files on the Afghan conflict in July.