AN online petition has been launched calling for the remains of Richard III to be taken to a Catholic chapel while they await reburial.

The bones of the monarch have been kept at the University of Leicester since they were found under a city car park in 2012.

However, the petition is calling on the remains to be transferred to a holy place before they are permanently reinterred in March.

Richard III was killed in battle at the end of the War of the Roses in 1485, and his remains were thought lost to history until a group of archaeologists located them in Leicester in 2012.

The Looking for Richard team said an early agreement between them and the university meant the king's bones should have been released to them, but this is disputed.

Project leader Philippa Langley, who is based in Edinburgh, said: "We wanted him to lie in a chapel of rest. They refused. Now we are petitioning for the very least you would want for anyone, and especially for your war-dead: to be coffined reverently in a holy place of his own religion."

Dr John Ashdown-Hill, he historian and genealogist whose discovery of Richard III's DNA in 2005 led to identifying the king, added: "Our petition has support from concerned people of all backgrounds and faiths.

"It's a simple request and there is still plenty of time. No religious objections have been raised in Leicester, they just lack the will to do it.'"

After his death, Richard was portrayed as one of history's villains, most notably in a play by William Shakespeare.

But his supporters argue that this was an early form of medieval 'spin' and that he was in fact a pious Roman Catholic who had been harshly treated by his critics.

The king's bones will be placed in a tomb in the remodelled Leicester Cathedral on 26 March. The petition is online now until February 24 when it will be handed to the re-interment board in Leicester.

Leicester Cathedral and the Catholic Diocese of Nottingham said in a joint statement the group's frustrations over the burial were "fundamentally misplaced" and a Mass for the king would be held as part of the reinterment ceremonies.

"There is no requirement in the Catholic tradition for prayers to be said at the coffining of human remains, including those of a monarch. The arrangements agreed between the university and the cathedral have the full support of the Catholic Church," the statement said.

It said there was "no legal credibility" to suggest the arrangement breached private agreements between the group and the university.