Libyan rebels have begun outlining the first steps towards a new government.

A council tasked with drafting a constitution for Libya should be elected within eight months ahead of presidential and legislative polls in early 2013, a rebel leadership official said Friday.

"We have outlined a clear road plan, a transition period of about 20 months," Guma al-Gamaty, the National Transitional Council's (NTC) representative in Britain, told BBC radio.

Mr Gamaty said the process of transition was already underway and the NTC would move properly to Tripoli within a few days.

He said for the first eight months the NTC would lead Libya, after which a council of about 200 people will have been directly elected.

"This council... will take over and oversee the drafting of a democratic constitution that should be debated and then brought to a referendum," he said.

Mr Gamaty said the rebels were aiming for presidential elections to take place within a year of the council's creation.

"So we have eight months and a year that will take us to final elections, with both parliamentary and presidential elections," he said.

"And then hopefully by the end of about 20 months the Libyan people will have elected the leaders they want to lead their country."

Mr Gamaty added the fact that toppled leader Moamar Gaddafi was still at large in Libya was no obstacle to starting the transition.

"As long as Tripoli is stabilised and secure and safe, which is almost now, and the overwhelming majority of other cities and towns, Libyans can get on with the process of transition and stabilisation and the new political process," he said.

"Gaddafi is still at large but he is hiding, he is isolated, surrounded.

"We think it's a matter of time before he is either apprehended or if he resists, he might be killed."

On Thursday, Libya's new leaders won massive international support for their plans to rebuild the war-shattered country but faced threats of a long guerrilla war from Gaddafi.

"Prepare yourselves for a gang and guerrilla war, for urban warfare and popular resistance in every town... to defeat the enemy everywhere," the former dictator warned from his hideout in one of two audio tapes aired on Arab satellite television.

The NTC's plans for democracy has been boosted by international promises of billions of dollars in cash from unfrozen assets of the Gaddafi regime.

AFP