London, Feb 20 (IANS): A Swedish woman has been arrested for allegedly keeping her daughters captive for over a decade, media reported Friday.

Police officers suspected that the 59-year-old woman “restricted her children's freedom... for quite a few years”, according to a Guardian report.

One of the now adult children managed to briefly leave the apartment, where they were being held, in the small southern Swedish town of Bromolla and convince a neighbour to raise the alarm.

She said that they had been locked up for more than a decade, according to media reports.

“One of the young women was led out of the apartment -- she could barely walk by herself,” an eyewitness said.

One neighbour said: “The blinds were always pulled down there and we haven't heard any noise from the apartment.”

Investigators were questioning the woman and her children -- thought to now be aged 32, 24 and 23 -- at a police station in the nearby town of Kristianstad.

Prosecutor Par Andersson said that he would decide Friday whether to release the woman or ask a court to detain her.

The report suggested that the woman had moved her children to different locations over the years in a bid to keep them away from their father.

A man, claiming to be the father of the three victims, told a Swedish newspaper that he had been searching for them for 17 years.