Chen Guangcheng, a blind Chinese lawyer who uncovered scores of rights abuses, has escaped from house arrest and appealed to Premier Wen Jiabao to keep his family safe in a video posted online Friday.

Chen, 40, fled his closely guarded home in the eastern province of Shandong last Sunday, escaping from under the noses of dozens of plain-clothes security officers with the help of his supporters.

In an address to China's premier, he said he had suffered repeated beatings, and expressed serious concerns for his wife and young son, still being held at the family's home in Dongshigu village.

"Even though I am now free, I am still concerned because my family -- my mother, my wife, my child are still in their hands," he said.

Chen's exact whereabouts are unknown, but there are rumours he may have sought refuge at the US embassy.

Bob Fu, a US-based activist in close contact with Chen, told AFP the lawyer was "now in a 100 percent safe location in Beijing", but declined to give further details.

No one at the US embassy in Beijing returned calls for comment on whether Chen, who won worldwide acclaim for his campaigning on forced sterilisations and late-term abortions under China's "one-child" policy, had sought refuge there.

Fu -- a former Tiananmen Square democracy activist who fled China in 1996 after being persecuted for his religious beliefs -- said Chen had previously expressed reluctance to leave the country.

"He said he wants to fight to the end inside China for his citizen's rights. He wants to lead a normal life as a Chinese citizen," Fu said.

Chen's escape came ahead of a visit to China next week by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has repeatedly called for him to be released from house arrest.

If he has been granted refuge by the United States, he would be the first Chinese dissident known to have done so since Fang Lizhi, a key figure in the pro-democracy movement.

Fang was granted refuge at the embassy after publicly supporting the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and forced into exile in 1990. He died in the United States earlier this month at the age of 76.

Wang Lijun, former right-hand man of the disgraced Chinese leader Bo Xilai, reportedly went to the US consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu in February to seek US asylum, but was turned down.

Chen had been under house arrest along with his wife and young son since he was released from a four-year jail sentence in September 2010.

The family was forced to live holed up in their cramped home for nearly 20 months -- guarded round the clock by government-employed thugs who Chen said had repeatedly beaten him.

Chen gained fame for helping people sue officials over a wide variety of injustices, with corrupt officials in government a particular target.

After pursuing law at a school for the blind during his youth, he armed himself with legal knowledge and began giving free legal advice to villagers, although he has no formal legal qualifications.

He was jailed in 2006 after accusing family-planning officials in Shandong of forcing at least 7,000 women to be sterilised or undergo late-term abortions.

That same year, he was named by Time magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people for his courage in exposing the abortion and sterilisation abuses.

Reporters and activists who have tried to visit Chen during his house arrest have been unable to access his home, and some have even been roughed up by the thugs who stand guard at every entrance to his village.

Hollywood actor Christian Bale famously tried to go visit the lawyer last December, but was stopped by thugs who pushed and punched him.

Chen's treatment is particularly draconian even in China, where dissidents and lawyers are frequently held under some form of house arrest if they upset authorities or are believed to be a threat.

Fu said news of Chen's escape burst into the open in the early hours of Friday, when government officials went to Dongshigu village to search his house and that of his elder brother Chen Guangfu.

A China-based supporter of Chen, whose name AFP is withholding for his safety, said violence then broke out in the village.

Fu said the lawyer's wife, mother and child were unable to leave the house, which had been surrounded by police, while his elder brother had been arrested.

He added that He Peirong, one of Chen's supporters who helped transport him to a safe location, was arrested at her home in the eastern city of Nanjing on Friday.

-- The video of Chen Guangcheng's appeal to the Chinese premier can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycMCdAtgeu0