PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The United Nations secretary-general plans to call for an independent commission to study whether UN peacekeepers caused a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 2,400 people in Haiti, an official said on Wednesday.

UN officials initially dismissed speculation about the involvement of peacekeepers. The announcement indicates that concern about the epidemic's origin has now reached the highest levels of the global organization.

"We are urging and we are calling for what we could call an international panel," UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said at a news conference at UN headquarters in New York. "We are in discussions with (the UN World Health Organization) to find the best experts to be in a panel to be completely independent."