Hundreds of inmates died as a fire swept through an overcrowded prison in Honduras, with many of them trapped and screaming inside their cells as the blaze took hold.

A senior official at the attorney general's office, Danelia Ferrera, said 359 people died in the blaze that began late on Tuesday night at the prison in Comayagua, about 75 kilometres north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

Survivors described wrenching scenes of inmates clutching each other in desperation while being engulfed by choking smoke and flames, in what is the world's deadliest prison blaze in a decade.

There are reports that many inmates died because they were still chained to the bars of their cells when the flames took hold.

"It's a terrible scene ... Our staff went into the cells and the bodies are charred, most of them are unrecognisable," Mr Ferrera told the Reuters news agency, adding that officials would have to use dental records and DNA in many cases to identify those killed.

Battered by violent street gangs and drug trafficking, Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world, according to the United Nations.

There are frequent riots and clashes between rival gangs in its cramped jails, although it was not yet clear if the Comayagua blaze - one of the worst prison fires ever in Latin America - was started deliberately or if it was an accident.

"We heard screaming from the people who caught on fire," one prisoner told reporters, showing the fingers he fractured in his escape from the fire. "We had to push up the roof panels to get out."

Injured prisoners were filmed being carried out of the jail, some crawling with visible burns.

At one stage relatives of inmates had to be held back by police as they tried to storm the jail.

The crowd, mostly women, hurled rocks at police who responded by firing shots into the air and shooting tear gas.

Officials were not sure of the cause of the fire.

"There is one hypothesis that is was a short circuit in the electrical system, or (an inmate) set fire to a mattress," said Mr Ferrera, who was at the scene. "But there is not a definitive cause yet, we are still investigating."

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 1 minute 1 m Scenes from the deadly Honduran prison fire

A local police chief read out the names of 457 survivors outside the prison on Wednesday, but relatives still clamoured for more information.

"This is desperate, they won't tell us anything and I think my husband is dead," a crying Gregoria Zelaya said as she stood by a chain link fence.

It was the third major prison fire in Honduras since 2003 with dilapidated jails packed at more than double their capacity across the Central American nation.

Deadliest recent fires in the Americas Dec 29, 2001 - 280 people killed when a fire ravages a shopping area in Lima, Peru

Dec 29, 2001 - 280 people killed when a fire ravages a shopping area in Feb 20, 2003 - Pyrotechnics spark a blaze at a club in Rhode Island, US , killing 100 people

Feb 20, 2003 - Pyrotechnics spark a blaze at a club in , killing 100 people Aug 1, 2004 - 370 people killed in a supermarket blaze on the outskirts of Asunción, Paraguay

Aug 1, 2004 - 370 people killed in a supermarket blaze on the outskirts of Dec 30, 2004 - A blaze in a crowded nightclub kills 192 people in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Dec 30, 2004 - A blaze in a crowded nightclub kills 192 people in June 5, 2009 - A fire at a day-care centre kills 49 children in Hermosillo, Mexico

June 5, 2009 - A fire at a day-care centre kills 49 children in Dec 8, 2010 - 81 inmates killed when fire engulfs the San Miguel prison in Santiago, Chile

President Porfirio Lobo said he suspended the director of the Comayagua prison and the head of the national prison system to ensure a thorough investigation.

He promised to "take urgent measures to deal with this tragedy, which has plunged all Hondurans into mourning."

Police reported that one of the dead was a woman who had stayed overnight at the prison and the rest were inmates, but said some of the presumed dead could have escaped.

Prisons in Honduras are notoriously overcrowded, as is the case throughout Latin America.

The country's 24 overcrowded penal facilities officially have room for 8,000 inmates, but actually house 13,000.

The appalling living conditions are a cause of the frequent riots which break out across the region.

Soldiers inspect the inside of the National Prison compound in Comayagua ( AFP )

Reuters/AFP