Three people listed as"disappeared" in Chile during General Augusto Pinochet's military rule have been found or died in other circumstances, it has emerged.

Their names surfaced as investigators looked into a previous non-victim who has lived in Argentina for 35 years.

Gen Pinochet's supporters have long said reports of the missing, officially put at more than 1,183, are false.

President Michelle Bachelet, who was detained the 1970s, said these cases must not cast doubt on Chile's missing.

"Speaking as a woman who herself suffered this pain and as president of the nation, I am not going to accept that the suffering of families who are still awaiting truth and justice be taken advantage of nor much less played with," said President Bachelet.

She said she hoped all political forces would oppose any attempt to manipulate or score points over a subject that Chilean society had confronted with "responsibility and maturity".

The cases have given ammunition to supporters of the late Gen Pinochet who have long argued that cases of the "disappeared" are ficititious, says the BBC's Gideon Long in Santiago.

They have also embarrassed the state which has handed out thousands of dollars in compensation to the victims' families, he adds.