MISRATA, Libya - Ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi will be buried on Tuesday in a secret desert grave, a National Transitional Council official said, ending a wrangle over his rotting corpse that led many to fear for Libya's governability.

With their Western allies uneasy that Gadhafi was battered and shot after his capture on Thursday, rebels had put the body on show in a cold store while they argued over what to do with it, until its decay forced them on Monday to close the doors.

"He will be buried tomorrow in a simple burial with sheikhs attending the burial. It will be an unknown location in the open desert," the official told Reuters by telephone, adding that the decomposition of the body had reached the point where the "corpse cannot last any longer".

The killing of the 69-year-old in his hometown of Sirte brought to a close eight months of war, finally ending a nervous two-month hiatus since the motley rebel forces of the NTC overran the capital Tripoli.

But it also threatened to lay bare the regional and tribal rivalries that present the NTC with its biggest challenge.

NTC officials had said negotiations were going on with Gadhafi's tribal kinsmen from Sirte and within the interim leadership over where and how to dispose of the bodies, and on what the Misrata rebel leaders in possession of the corpses might receive in return for cooperation.

"No agreement was reached for his tribe to take him," the official told Reuters.

With the decay of the body forcing the NTC leadership's hand, it appeared to have decided that an anonymous grave would at least ensure the plot did not become a shrine.

An NTC official had told Reuters several days ago that there would be only four witnesses to the burial, and all would swear on the Koran never to reveal the location.

Rebel fears that Gadhafi's sons might mount an insurgency have been largely allayed by the death of two of those who wielded most power, military commander Khamis and Mo'tassim, the former national security adviser.

Mo'tassim was captured along with his father in Sirte and killed in similarly unclear circumstances, and the NTC official said he would be buried in the same ceremony on Tuesday.

Saif Al-Islam at border

But he said Gadhafi's long-time heir apparent Saif al-Islam was set to flee Libya, with the NTC powerless to stop him.

"He's on the triangle of Niger and Algeria. He's south of Ghat, the Ghat area. He was given a false Libyan passport from the area of Murzuq," the official added.

He said Muammar Gadhafi's former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi who, like Saif al-Islam, is wanted by the International Criminal Court, was involved in the plot.  

"The region is very, very difficult to monitor and encircle," he said. "The region is a desert region and it has ... many, many exit routes."  

The death of the fallen strongman allowed the NTC to trigger mass rejoicing by declaring Libya's long-awaited "liberation" on Sunday in Benghazi, the seat of the revolt.

But it also highlighted a lack of central control over disparate armed groups, and the jockeying for power among local commanders as negotiations begin in earnest to form an interim government that can run free elections.

"Leaders from different regions, cities, want to negotiate over everything - posts in government, budgets for cities, dissolving militias," said one senior NTC official in Tripoli, though he defended this as a healthy expression of freedom.

"Is that not democracy?" he asked. "It would be unusual if they did not after Muammar favoured only a few places for 40 years. There is no reason why it cannot be peaceful."

In Misrata, Libya's long-besieged third city, whose war leaders want a big role in the peace, fighters handing out surgical masks on Monday against the stench were still ushering hundreds of sightseers into the chill room where the bodies of Gadhafi, his son Mo'tassim and his former army chief lay on the floor, their flesh darkening and leaking fluids.