"They met at the state guest house for about one hour," an information ministry source said, adding the meeting ended at around 6:15 pm (1145 GMT).

It was their second meeting following Gambari's previous visit to the isolated Southeast Asian nation in May, and allowed the 61-year-old Nobel peace laureate to leave her house for the first time since the May 20 meeting.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest in Yangon for most of the past 17 years, was accompanied by national police chief Brigadier General Khin Yee on her way to and from the state guest house, the source said.

Apart from her live-in maid, the leader of opposition party National League for Democracy (NLD) is allowed no contact with the outside world, except for once-a-month visits from her doctor, Tin Myo Win.

Ahead of the meeting, Gambari, an emissary of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, flew to Myanmar's new administrative capital, Nay Pyi Taw, some 350 kilometers (217 miles) north of Yangon, and held talks with junta leader Than Shwe, a senior information ministry official said.

The UN envoy also met with seven senior NLD members at the UN Development Program's office in Yangon, NLD sources said.

"Our senior members told Mr Gambari that we wanted a dialogue (with the military government) to achieve national reconciliation," said NLD spokesman Myint Thein.

"We also told him that we continued to press for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners," he said. The United Nations has estimated there are some 1,100 political prisoners in Myanmar.

When the junta allowed Gambari to see the pro-democracy leader in May, the Nigerian diplomat became the only foreigner allowed to see her in more than two years, raising hopes that the military government might finally set her free.

But just a week after the surprise meeting, the junta extended her house arrest for another year.