The State Department said Monday it was looking into a report that the United States has provided millions of dollars in financial support to two Palestinian universities, including one controlled by Hamas.

The Washington Times reported that the institutions had participated in the "advocacy, support or glorification of terrorism."

The paper also cited that since Congress changed the 2004 law restricting aid to entities or individuals "involved in or advocating terrorist activity," the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had provided more than $140,000 in assistance to the Hamas-controlled Islamic University in Gaza alone and had given scholarships to 49 of its students.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said officials were checking into the report.

The Times report said the funding, principally in scholarships to individual students, was being scrutinized by several members of Congress and their aides, who said it might violate US law.

McCormack acknowledged that some US scholarship money had gone to Palestinian university students but only to those confirmed not to have links to terrorism.