The family of a detained Tunisian leftist still has no news of his fate two days after police snatched him from his home and now fears for his life, his daughter told AFP on Friday.

Hamma Hammami, 59-year-old leader of the banned Tunisian Workers' Communist Party (POCT), was grabbed on Wednesday amid mounting street protests against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's authoritarian regime.

"We still have no news of my father. We fear for his life and for that of one of his lawyers, Mohamed Mzem, who was taken at the same time as him," said Nadia Hammami, speaking to AFP during a visit to France.

"Yesterday his lawyers went to see the Tunis state prosecutor who told them that no charge has been levelled against him," she said, adding that she now considers her father missing and presumed "kidnapped."

Nadia said her mother, the lawyer Radia Nasraoui, planned to visit the interior ministry later Friday. "If he's still alive, he must be there, because he was taken by the political police," she said.

Hammami has been working in the opposition underground to escape arrest since February last year, but in recent weeks has dared make appearances on foreign media to support the protests against Ben Ali.