Raul Gomez, found after four months alone in border mountains of Argentina and Chile, was wanted by authorities

A man rescued after reportedly spending four months lost in the Andes mountains of South America turns out to have been on the run from child sex charges.

Authorities said on Monday that Raul Gomez, a plumber from Uruguay, had survived through the winter after disappearing along Chile's high-altitude border with Argentina.

An emaciated Gomez was shown recovering in a hospital more than four months after he was last heard from. Repeated search efforts had been called off due to bad weather after failing to turn up any sign of him amid the snow-covered peaks.

It was not clear at first why a 58-year-old motorcyclist with no apparent mountaineering experience had been so determined to walk across the Chilean frontier. Gomez was said to have been travelling to Argentina and then Chile to meet up with other motorcyclists.

Gomez told people in the hospital that he decided to cross back over on foot in May after his motorcycle broke down.

An official in the Chilean prosecutor's office in Santiago confirmed to the Associated Press on Monday that Gomez was wanted in Chile's capital for investigation of child sex abuse allegations. A warrant had been issued for his arrest on 22 April, the official said.

In Gomez's hometown of Bella Union, Uruguay, the man's mother, Irma Cincunegui, told AP she did not believe the allegations. "Raul is a good, hard-working man," she said. "Everybody knows him in Bella Union where he never had troubles with anybody."

Gomez was discovered on Sunday at the Ingeniero Sardina refuge, a small cabin 4,500 metres (14,760ft) above sea level, by a pilot and two state water experts who had flown up to measure snow levels. He told them he took shelter in the refuge after getting disoriented by winter snowstorms.

He had been carrying a small amount of food and said he ate other meagre supplies that mountaineers had left in the refuge. When that ran out, he told his rescuers, he survived by capturing small animals.

"He lost 20 kilos (45lb). He apparently fed himself with mice and an owl or two," Hospital Rawson spokesman Rodrigo Belert told AP.

The Chilean attorney general's office must now consider whether to seek his extradition once he is healthy enough to travel again. Belert said hospital authorities had not received any communication from the Chilean government. "The patient could get released shortly but we're waiting to see if some official information arrives," Belert said.

Ignacio Capandeguy, Uruguay's consul in Argentina's Cordoba province, also told the AP that he had not seen any official information from Chile and that Uruguayan authorities were focused on the man's health.