The United States, France and Britain sponsored the measure in response to a tough report earlier this month by a UN commission that said Syrian security forces and its Lebanese allies organised the bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others in Beirut on February 14.

The report, by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who heads the UN probe, also accused Syria of lack of cooperation.

Some 11 foreign ministers or their deputies among the 15 Security Council members travelled to New York for the meeting, underlying the importance of the vote and negotiated the text until the last minute.

"With our decision today we show that Syria has isolated itself from the international community through its false statements, its support for terrorism, its interference in the affairs of its neighbours and its destabilising behaviour in the Middle East," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

"Now the Syrian government needs to make a strategic decision to fundamentally change its behaviour," she said.

The resolution was adopted 15-0 after the principal drafters, the United States and France, agreed to delete a specific reference to economic sanctions. Instead the resolution would consider possible unspecified "further action" if Syria did not comply.

Russia, China and Algeria had objected to an outright threat of sanctions and might have abstained.

The measure demands Syria cooperate "unconditionally" with the UN probe, led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, and orders Damascus to take into custody and make available to UN investigators people suspected of involvement in the killing.

It also calls for a financial freeze and travel ban on individual suspects to be named by a UN commission, headed by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, or the Lebanese government. But any Security Council member can object to a name on such a list.

China's foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing spoke against any "willful use of sanctions and noted Mehlis would continue investigating until at least December 15.

"Under such circumstances it is inappropriate for the council to prejudge the outcome of the investigation and to threaten to impose sanctions. It does not help with the settlement of this issue and will add new destabilising factors to the already complex situation in the Middle East," he said.

The death of Hariri, an opponent of Syrian domination of his country, transformed Lebanon's political landscape. The killing led Syria to pull out its troops from Lebanon after three decades and has put increasing pressure on Lebanon's pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud to resign.

France's foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, said the Security Council had "only one aim: the truth, the whole truth about Rafik Hariri's assassination in order that those responsible for it answer for their crime."

But Brazil also had hesitations about sanctions, with its foreign minister, Celso Amorim, saying that any additional measure could only be taken by council members on the basis of facts.

Among names mentioned in the Mehlis report is General Assef Shawkat, brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad and head of military intelligence as well as the president's brother, Maher Assad.

Syria, which denies the accusations, over the weekend reached out to Arab leaders, sending its deputy foreign minister Walid al-Mualem, on a tour of Gulf States. On Saturday Assad said he would set up a commission to conduct Syria's own investigation into the assassination.

Rice has sought to isolate Syria over the past year because of Lebanon. And she has accused Damascus of allowing foreign fighters to cross over its border to Iraq where more than 150,000 U.S. troops are fighting a bloody insurgency.