US State Department halts review of Clinton's emails

The US State Department at the request of the FBI has suspended plans for an internal review of whether classified information was properly handled in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails.

"The FBI communicated to us that we should follow our standard practice, which is to put our internal review on hold while there is an ongoing law enforcement investigation ," the Guardian quoted State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau as saying.

"The internal review is on hold, pending completion of the FBI's work. We'll reassess next steps after the FBI's work is complete," she added.

Clinton, the democratic presidential front- runner, has apologised for using a private email server for official business while in office from 2009 to 2013 and said she did nothing wrong.

The State Department said on January 29 that 22 e-mails sent or received by Clinton was upgraded to confidential at the request US intelligence agencies.

It had also said that the emails would not be made public as part of the release of thousands of Clinton's emails.