Stockholm - Members of the committees that select Nobel prizes for chemistry, physics and medicine said Tuesday they had second thoughts about the propriety of having accepted Chinese state- sponsored trips to China.

The ministry of education in China on two occasions, most recently in January 2008, paid for the trips and hotel costs, Swedish radio news reported.

During the week-long visit the two professors, Sven Lidin of the chemistry committee and Borje Johansson of the physics committee, were quizzed by reporters, scientists and government officials about how China could win a Nobel prize.

The report, a joint effort between Swedish radio's news and science desks, was broadcast on the eve of Wednesday's award ceremony in Stockholm where King Carl XVI Gustaf was to present awards to Nobel laureates in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics.

Asked about the trip, Lidin told Swedish radio: "I think it would have been a better idea if it had been paid from Sweden if our impartiality is questioned."

Gunnar Oqvist, permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said that in hindsight it was inappropriate to accept the paid trips and hotels.

Professor Claes Sandgren, chairman of the Anti-Corruption Institute founded in 1923 that serves as a watchdog against possible bribery, said the trips were questionable.

In 2002, eight Nobel committee members visited Japan on a similar sponsored trip.

However, Hans Jornvall, secretary of the Nobel Committee at the Karolinska Institute that selects the medicine prize laureates, believed the trips were worthwhile.

Jornvall, who visited Japan, said in his view "it was not wrong that that "those who want this information also pay for it" by funding trips. (dpa)