By Muklis Ali and Jerry Norton

JAKARTA, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Indonesia cranked up pressure on Jemaah Islamiah on Thursday by announcing it will ask the United Nations to put the Southeast Asian militant network suspected of being behind the bloody Bali bombings on its terrorist list.

The call came as police scoured the vast archipelago of 17,000 islands and 210 million people for three men as possible suspects and just hours after the United States declared al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah a "foreign terrorist organisation".

Foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said getting the group on the U.N. list would mean a "freeze without delay of any funds or financial assets owned by that organisation" as well as crimping the ability of members to move across borders.

"This is consistent with the Indonesian attitude that fighting terrorism must be done through the U.N.," he told Reuters.

The United States and some other countries are expected to make the same request to the U.N. as police in Indonesia hunt for three men whose descriptions emerged from witness statements on the October 12 Bali bombs which killed more than 180 people.

Made Mangku Pastika, head of the international investigation team who had said the three possible suspects were Indonesian, said on Thursday they were of Indonesian appearance but their nationalities had not been established.

POLICE STILL WAIT

In the central Java city of Solo, police were waiting to interrogate alleged Jemaah Islamiah leader Abu Bakar Bashir, taken to hospital last week with what doctors said were respiratory, heart and ulcer problems.

Police doctors were waiting for Bashir's lawyers to leave the militant Muslim cleric's hospital room on Thursday so they could determine whether he was healthy enough for interrogation.

Fellow Islamic teachers have been to see Bashir in hospital and quoted him as swearing in the name of Allah he had nothing to do with an alleged plot to kill President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

That plot, while Megawati was vice president, is one subject police want to question him about. Previous bomb attacks in Indonesia, blamed on Jemaah Islamiah and which police said bore similarities to Bali, are another.

Bashir denies any knowledge of Jemaah Islamiah, although foreign intelligence officials have been calling him a leader of it for months and some Southeast Asian officials accuse the group of plotting violence across the region.

But the Indonesian government, apparently fearing a backlash from Bashir's followers, only detained him after the Bali bombs, which stunned Indonesians, the majority of whom are moderates.

BEAR THE HALLMARKS

Indonesian police say the Bali bombs, which killed mostly foreigners dancing and drinking in the Kuta Beach nightclub area, bore the hallmark of Jemaah Islamiah.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in adding it to the U.S. list of terror groups: "The United States does not wish to imply that we have come to a conclusion about responsibility for the devastating Bali bombings on October 12."

But, he said: "We hope these steps put Jemaah Islamiah out of the terrorism business."

At least 90 of the Bali dead were Australian and their country mourned them again on Thursday.

In Canberra, about 1,000 Australians, foreign diplomats and visiting schoolchildren joined Prime Minister John Howard and religious leaders in offering prayers for the victims and calling for justice.

(with reporting by Andrea Hopkins in Canberra)