An aide of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi who was arrested in January for links with the banned Bahai faith has been freed on bail by the Iranian authorities, Ebadi told AFP on Friday.

"She (Jinous Sobhani) has been released on a 700-million-rials (70,000 dollars) bail on Wednesday paid by her family," Ebadi said.

Ebadi, who won the Nobel peace prize in 2003, said she was unable to comment on the accusations against Sobhani as "I have not read the content of her case."

In January, the Iranian judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said that Sobhani was accused of "propaganda against the system and acting against national security."

After her arrest, the Fars news agency, which is close to Iranian conservatives, identified Sobhani as a member of the banned Bahai faith and said she was was arrested for links with a Bahai organisation.

It said Sobhani, who was the secretary of Ebadi's Human Rights Defenders Centre which was closed in December 2008 during a police raid, was accused of "forming an organisation of Bahaism in Iran."

The Bahai faith was founded in Iran in 1863, but is not recognised by the government. Its followers are regarded as infidels and have suffered persecution both before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Bahais consider Bahaullah, born in 1817, to be the last prophet sent by God. This is in direct conflict with Islam, which considers Mohammed to be the last prophet.