Lithuania opened a probe Tuesday after US justice authorities said a US company had paid bribes to officials employed at a nuclear power plant in the Baltic state before it shut down in 2009 under EU rules.

"The prosecutor general's office opened a pretrial investigation into the possible bribery and abuse of office by officials at the Ignalina nuclear facility," the prosecution service said in a statement.

Lithuania's only nuclear power plant, a Soviet-era facility in the country's northeast, went offline on December 31, 2009, under the terms of its European Union entry five years earlier.

Tuesday's probe follows a report by the US Justice Department on Monday that Data Systems & Solutions (DS&S), a US company, paid bribes to officials at the Ignalina nuclear plant to secure contracts.

Zilvinas Jurksus, head of the plant, told Lithuanian Radio on Tuesday he would also open an internal investigation, adding that the US report came as a surprise to him.

Daiva Rimasauskaite, spokeswoman for the plant, said Tuesday DS&S had implemented various projects, including security and monitoring systems, in 1999-2006, worth tens of millions of dollars.

"The persons mentioned in the US court documents, including the then head of Ignalina plant, do not work in the company now," she told AFP.

US authorities said the Reston, Virginia-based DS&S was charged with conspiring to violate and violating anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

"DS&S paid bribes to officials employed by the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, a state-owned nuclear power plant in Lithuania, to secure contracts to perform services for the plant," the Justice Department said in a statement.

"To disguise the scheme, the bribes were funneled through several subcontractors located in the United States and abroad. The subcontractors, in turn, made repeated payments to high-level officials at Ignalina via check or wire transfer," it added.

DS&S agreed to pay the $8.82 million penalty and the Justice Department agreed to defer prosecution for two years and then drop the charges if the company implements internal controls.