AFP - Muslim rebels handed elderly Irish priest Michael Sinnott over to Philippine authorities in good health on Thursday, just over a month after he was abducted, authorities said.

The announcement that Sinnott, 79, had been released ended an ordeal that began with six still-unidentified gunmen abducting him from his Catholic missionary compound in the volatile south of the country.

"He was turned over to us by the MILF," said Major-General Ben Dolorfino, referring to the Muslim separatist guerrilla group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

"This is a big confidence-building measure in forthcoming peace talks."

The news came the same day as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was due to arrive in the Philippines for a visit in which security issues such as the Muslim insurgency were expected to be on the agenda.

Dolorfino said the priest was "weak" but otherwise fine and was being taken care of in the general's own quarters in Zamboanga, a southern Philippine city about 150 kilometres (90 miles) from where Sinnott had been held captive in remote jungles.

Sinnott's superior in the Society of Saint Columbans, Father Patrick O'Donoghue, said he was overjoyed with the news.

"He is in reasonably good health. We are thankful, joyful, and relieved," O'Donoghue told AFP by telephone from Pagadian, the same city where Sinnott had been based, adding he believed no ransom had been paid for the release.

"I look forward to giving him a big hug."

The Irish government also said in Dublin that no ransom had been paid, despite his abductors earlier releasing a video demanding two million dollars for his freedom.

"To do so would only have jeopardised the vital work of aid workers and missionaries around the world -- it would also place other Irish citizens in danger," Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin said.

It remained unclear Thursday which group was behind the October 11 abduction of Sinnott, who has served in impoverished areas of the southern Philippines for decades.

The MILF maintained Thursday that it was not behind the kidnapping, as earlier alleged by the Philippine government, and that it was responsible for securing his release.

"We got Father Sinnott," Mohaqer Iqbal, the MILF's chief negotiator in peace talks with the government, told AFP.

"We convinced them (kidnappers) to hand him over to us. We got them to release him through pressure, by talking with their relatives, moral persuasion."

Iqbal insisted the kidnappers had no links to the MILF, but refused to give their identities.

"I can not name them," he said.

Dolorfino said Sinnott recounted to him that MILF emissaries went up to the kidnappers' jungle hideout last week and secured his custody from the gunmen.

"They (the emissaries) went down on foot and stayed in a mangrove swamp for 10 days," Dolorfino said.

Rafael Seguis, the chief government negotiator in planned peace talks with the MILF, also told reporters that Sinnott was released voluntarily by the kidnappers.

"He was freed, not rescued," Seguis said.

He added: "He is fine now but is undergoing medical check-up."

After that he will be flown to Manila for an audience with President Gloria Arroyo, Seguis said.

Seguis and Iqbal had been meeting in recent months to try to restart peace talks, which were suspended last year after the MILF launched a series of deadly raids on Christian settler communities in Mindanao.

The attacks claimed scores of lives and displaced more than half a million civilians, about 300,000 of whom remain in evacuation centres according to international aid agencies.

The 12,000-strong MILF has been waging a rebellion for an independent Islamic state in the southern third of the mainly Catholic Philippines since 1978.