Britain pulls spies after Snowden leaks

Britain has been forced to remove some of its spies after Russia and China accessed the top-secret raft of documents taken by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, British media reported.

The BBC and the Sunday Times cited senior government and intelligence officials as saying agents had been pulled, with the newspaper saying the move came after Russia was able to decrypt more than one million files.

"It is the case that Russians and Chinese have information. It has meant agents have had to be moved and that knowledge of how we operate has stopped us getting vital information," a Downing Street source said, according to the newspaper.

The BBC said on its website, meanwhile, that a government source said the two countries "have information" that spurred intelligence agents being moved, but said there was "no evidence" any spies were harmed.

Snowden worked as a contractor at the CIA and National Security Agency, where he was able to download 1.7 million secret documents that showed how hundreds of millions of people had been under surveillance by the authorities.

He previously claimed that "no intelligence service" could crack the documents. The US administration has branded Snowden a hacker and a traitor who endangered lives by revealing the extent of the NSA spying program.

But he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the second year in a row and has received a string of international awards for free speech and civil liberties.