SAO PAULO — A Brazilian newspaper reported Thursday that a correspondent who has been missing in Libya for a week had been jailed outside the North African country’s capital but was about to be released.

Libya’s ambassador to Brazil told Brazilian senators that reporter Andrei Netto is about to be freed, the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper reported on its website.

There was no word, however, on the whereabouts of a correspondent for Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who had been with Netto.

Libyan Ambassador Salem Omar Abdullah Al-Zubaidi told Brazilian senators that Netto was arrested because of mistakes he made in forms he filled out to enter Libya, according to senators quoted on the Estado de S. Paulo website.

President Dilma Rousseff has ordered the Brazilian Foreign Ministry to take the steps needed to ensure the journalist’s physical integrity and release, the president’s office said in a statement. It said that Netto was being held in a jail in the Libyan town of Sabratha.

Neither the newspaper nor Brazilian officials said if Abdul-Ahad was with him.

The paper said it had lost direct contact a week ago with its reporter.

The Guardian’s Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi, was last in touch through a third party Sunday, when he was on the outskirts of Zawiya, a city west of the Libyan capital that has seen battles in recent days, his newspaper said in a statement.

A Libyan guide was traveling with Netto and Abdul-Ahad and was also missing.

“We are obviously concerned for his safety and well-being and hoping that the authorities in (the capital of) Tripoli will do all they can to locate him and ensure his safety,” Guardian Middle East Editor Ian Black told The Associated Press.

Abdul-Ahad, a seasoned war correspondent, entered Libya through the Tunisian border two weeks ago, the Guardian said.

O Estado de S. Paulo, one of Brazil’s largest newspapers, said earlier that it had been receiving “indirect information” indicating Netto was safe in the region of Zawiya.

But the newspaper said that on Wednesday it had received information suggesting Netto had been taken prisoner by Libyan government forces, and that a Libyan official said the information was “probably correct.”

Netto entered Libya on Feb. 19 from the border with Tunisia and worked his way toward Zawiya, the newspaper said.

Journalists in Libya have been operating under heavy reporting restrictions. Embattled leader Muammar Qaddafi has tried to control the flow of information by inviting Western journalists to Tripoli under government escort to see squares filled with pro-Qaddafi loyalists.

But attempting to cover the other side has presented increasingly fraught conditions for reporters.

The BBC said three of its staff were detained, beaten and subjected to mock executions by pro-regime soldiers in Libya while attempting to reach Zawiya.

The news organization said the crew, members of a BBC Arabic team, were detained Monday by Qaddafi loyalists at a checkpoint about six miles south of Zawiya.

Chris Cobb-Smith, a British journalist and part of the crew, said the group was moved between several locations, in some cases alongside civilian captives who had visible injuries from heavy beatings.