Swedish BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay has admitted that its website was hacked and a database containing 1.6 million user names and passwords stolen.

"Some people (and yes, we know who) found a security hole on our website (in fact, actually in this blog)," the outfit said in a blog posting.

The Pirate Bay operates possibly the world's largest BitTorrent tracking system, allowing users to download much of the copyrighted material available on the web.

It is understood from the site that user data has not been compromised. Apparently The Pirate Bay knew who had stolen the database and got in contact after it appeared on the web.

The thieves had been unable to beat the encryption on the downloaded data, so the haul was next to useless.

While Pirate Bay has not named the hackers involved, reports suggest that Sweden's Angry Young Hackers are the culprits.