Iran claimed Sunday that it has "captured" a spy drone belonging to the U.S., as the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan admitted that one of its reconnaissance aircraft went missing last week.

The aircraft, according to Yahoo News, was a stealth unmanned aerial vehicle, described by Tehran as the RQ-170, which Lockheed Martin, the drone's manufacturer, calls the Sentinel.

Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency said Sunday that a UAV from the U.S. was intercepted and "forced down" by the armed forces.

The IRNA report added that "the unmanned craft is of the type 'RQ-170', which was slightly damaged and is currently in the hands of the Iranian forces."

The news agency identified its source as an unnamed military official.

A story in The Washington Post hinted that the UAV may have been captured and not shot down by Iran when it wrestled control from its remote pilots based in America though the use of computer virus.

That suggestion runs in parallel with an earlier confirmation issued by the United States Air Force in October that a virus had infected its computer system at Creech Air Force base Nevada, where most of the spy drones are operated, according to Yahoo News.

ISAF's statement gave credence to Tehran's report when it admitted that "the operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status."

"The UAV to which the Iranians are referring may be a U.S. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan last week," the ISAF official statement said on Sunday.

Little has been officially known of the Sentinel as the Air Force routinely refuses to comment on the unmanned spy aircraft, including its deployment in the region where the RQ-170 was allegedly intercepted by Iran.

Details, however, about the drone have already been leaked by major U.S. media outlets, including its apparent susceptibility to hacking attacks that may compromise its technology.

Yahoo News reported that the RQ-170 "does not use the most sophisticated U.S. military technology because as a single-engine UAV, it was judged to have a higher likelihood of occasionally going down."