Four Iraqi men -- three Christians and a Turkman -- were kidnapped on a hunting trip near the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk on Wednesday, the eponymous province's police chief said.

The men were travelling together in one car, and at around 7:30 pm (1630 GMT), security forces discovered only their burned-out vehicle and their hunting dogs dead, Major General Jamal Taher Bakr said.

Bakr said security officers had searched areas surrounding the car and were unable to find the men's bodies, and believed the men to have been kidnapped.

The group includes Nuya Ayub Yalda, 43, Petrus Gergis and Ashur Dawood, both 50 years old, and 62-year-old Jenkiz Izzadin. The first three of the group are Christian, while Izzadin is Turkman.

A security official in Kirkuk said the area where the group went missing, near the town of Daquq, around 45 kilometres (28 miles) south of Kirkuk city, was known to be frequented by the Ansar al-Sunna insurgent group, but said it was unclear who was behind the apparent kidnap.

Kidnappings are common in Kirkuk, the centre of Iraq's northern oil fields, 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad. Police in the city accuse Al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups of being behind the kidnaps, as other sources of funding have dried up.

A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in mid-July that there had been at least 45 kidnappings in Kirkuk since the start of the year, with the majority of the victims belonging to wealthy families.

Kirkuk is at the centre of a tract of disputed territory that Kurdish leaders want to incorporate in their autonomous region in the north over the opposition of many Arab and Turkmen residents, as well as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

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