Muammar Gaddafi and his son Mo'tassim were buried in a secret desert location today, five days after his death.
"He (Gaddafi) has just been buried now in the desert along with his son," National Transitional Council (NTC) commander Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters by telephone.
Gaddafi's cleric, Khaled Tantoush, who was captured with him, prayed over the bodies before they were taken from the compound in Misrata and handed to two NTC loyalists for burial, he said.
The NTC had worried many outsiders by displaying the corpses in a meat locker in the fiercely anti-Gaddafi coastal city of Misrata.
Under pressure from Western allies, the NTC yesterday promised to investigate how Gaddafi and his son were killed.
Mobile phone footage shows both alive after their capture.
The former leader was seen being mocked, beaten and abused before he died, in what NTC officials say was crossfire.
The saga has made Western allies of Libya's interim leadership queasy about the prospects for the rule of law and stable government in the post-Gaddafi era.
Determined to prevent Gaddafi's grave from becoming a shrine for his supporters, the NTC wants to keep its location secret, refusing custody to his tribe, many of whom live in Sirte.
The prayers for the dead were attended by two of Gaddafi's cousins, Mansour Dhao Ibrahim, once leader of the feared People's Guard, and Ahmed Ibrahim.
Both were captured with him after a NATO airstrike hit a convoy of vehicles trying to break out of Sirte, Gaddafi's home town, just after it fell.
