(Adds U.S. raised issue on Monday and Tuesday, Vital Voices comment, paragraphs 10-12)

BEIJING, Feb 6 (Reuters) - China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it knew nothing of claims that an aging advocate for AIDS sufferers had been blocked from visiting the United States, saying local officials may know about the case.

Friends of Gao Yaojie, an octogenarian doctor instrumental in exposing China's long-concealed rural AIDS crisis, have said she was put under house arrest in Zhengzhou, capital of the central province of Henan, to prevent her from collecting an award from a U.S. group.

Hu Jia, a Beijing-based rights activist, said police forced Gao to miss her Sunday flight to Beijing to apply for her U.S. visa.

The U.S. Embassy in the Chinese capital has raised the issue with the Foreign Ministry, but ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said she knew nothing of Gao's case.

"I haven't heard of that. That's information gathered locally and we haven't received it," Jiang said when asked whether Gao had been confined to her home. "You can inquire with the local government."

Jiang said China was "a country with a system of law and everyone is equal before the law."

Officials in Zhengzhou have refused to answer questions from reporters about Gao, who is well-known in China and received warm media coverage until her unflinching criticism of official complicity and apathy became too much.

Gao was among the first to expose a scandal in Henan in which millions of people sold blood to unsanitary, often state-run health clinics, making the province the center of China's AIDS epidemic.

"We are concerned by reports of the detention of Dr. Gao Yaojie," said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Leslie Phillips. "The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has raised our concerns with the Chinese Foreign Ministry and urged that the Chinese government take steps to allow Gao to travel freely."

Another U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said the State Department raised the issue on Monday and Tuesday.

Gao had been invited to the Vital Voices annual awards in March in Washington, where she was to be honored for her work, according to an invitation letter from the group, supported by U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"The news of Dr. Gao's house arrest is of grave concern to us," said Melanne Verveer, chairman of the board of Vital Voices. "The Chinese government needs to intervene immediately to reverse this unfortunate incident."

In 2001, Gao was barred from leaving China to collect the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights. Two years later, authorities prevented her from going abroad to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington)

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