Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says that Google's allegations of Chinese hacking of its email system are "very serious" and will be investigated by the FBI.

Clinton told reporters on Thursday that the Obama administration was disturbed by the charges, which the Internet company says include breaches of email accounts belonging to senior U.S. officials.

Google said Wednesday that personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials, military personnel and political activists, had been exposed. Google traced the origin of the attacks to the home city of a military vocational school in China whose computers were linked to an assault 17 months ago on Google's systems.