The Venezuelan government announced on Tuesday that it will set up a formal inquiry into suspicions the death of President Hugo Chavez amid claims that his cancer diagnosis was the result of poisoning by his enemies abroad.

"We will seek the truth," acting President Nicolas Maduro told regional TV network Telesur late on Monday. "We have the intuition that our commander Chavez was poisoned by dark forces that wanted him out of the way."

Foreign scientists will be invited to join a government commission, Maduro.