U.S. diplomats are spying on the leadership of the United Nations as well as the permanent Security Council representatives from China, Russia, France and Britain, classified cables released on Sunday show.

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"The United States has expanded the role of American diplomats in collecting intelligence overseas and at the United Nations, ordering State Department personnel to gather the credit card and frequent-flier numbers, work schedules and other personal information of foreign dignitaries," The New York Times said in its website.

The revelation is part of a huge trove of secret directives sent to U.S. embassies, which are being released by the whistleblower site Wikileaks. The trove, some 250,000 diplomatic cables, was made available in advance to The New York Times, British paper The Guardian and other news outlets for analysis.

"The cables give a laundry list of instructions for how State Department employees can fulfill the demands of a National Humint Collection Directive in specific countries," The New York Times website said.

A classified directive, issued to U.S. diplomats in July 2009 under the name of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, demanded forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.

It also sought detailed biometric information on key UN officials as well as intelligence on Secretary General Ban Ki-moon 's "management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat."

A parallel intelligence directive sent to diplomats in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi said biometric data include DNA, fingerprints and iris scans.

Washington also wanted credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and even frequent-flier account numbers for UN figures and "biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives."

In addition, the U.S. wanted intelligence on the contentious issue of the "relationship or funding between UN personnel and/or missions and terrorist organizations" and links between the UN Relief and Works Agency in the Middle East and Hamas and Hezbollah.

The secret directive was sent to U.S. missions at the UN in New York, Vienna and Rome as well as 33 embassies and consulates, including those in London, Paris and Moscow.

The Guardian said in its website that the operation targeted at the UN appears to have involved all of U.S. main intelligence agencies, noting the CIA's clandestine service, the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI were included in the "reporting and collection needs" cable alongside the State Department under the heading " collection requirements and tasking."

The UN has previously asserted that bugging the secretary general is illegal, citing the 1946 UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities which states "the premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable."

The 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, which covers the UN, also states that "the official correspondence of the mission shall be inviolable."

The U.S. contributes to about a quarter of UN budget, with more than 3 billion dollars for this year.

U.S. State Department and the White House have warned against the release of classified cables, saying they would be harmful and deeply impact U.S. interests.