Islamabad, Jun 17 (IANS): Pakistan has assured the US that it would investigate how its intelligence agencies failed to detect that Osama bin Laden was living in the country, a media report said.

The assurance was given at a meeting in Washington between US lawmakers and a Pakistani delegation led by ambassador Husain Haqqani, Dawn News reported.

Pakistan also assured the US officials Thursday that it was investigating an allegation that its security agencies, after being asked by American spy agency CIA to act against two explosives factories in the northwest, had instead alerted the militants and allowed them to escape.

During the meeting, both sides said the bin Laden episode was a "moment of introspection" for both Pakistan and the US.

Bin Laden was killed in a unilateral US special forces mission in Abbottabad city near Islamabad May 2. The CIA later said it did not inform Pakistan as it did not want to harm the operation.

The Pakistani delegation said Islamabad was forming a high-level commission to examine all aspects of the incident.

It would probe how bin Laden managed to live in Pakistan without detection, and how Pakistani security agencies could improve their surveillance to root out other terrorists in the country, if any.

The delegation, however, urged US lawmakers to examine why America did not feel the need to inform Pakistan of the operation.

The US lawmakers in turn asked the delegation to explain if the US could trust Pakistan.

The Pakistanis said there was a functioning democracy in the country for the last three-and-a-half years, and it was not possible for a democracy to be against the US.

"There can be differences on specific issues but in terms of broad and long-term orientation Pakistan will be with the US," it said.

The delegation argued that if the US sought a "normal" relationship with Pakistan, then it had no option but to "encourage, strengthen and bear with the democratic set-up" in the country.