THE HAGUE (AP) — Dutch marines board a fishing boat and free two dozen Yemenis from Somali pirates. They seize and destroy AK-47s and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher but then put the nine bandits back in their skiff and set them free.

The Dutch government says its navy made a mistake, but Saturday's catch and release in the Gulf of Aden underscores confusion over what to do with captured pirates — and led to calls in Washington for tougher NATO action.

The Dutch marines were among a NATO flotilla that has helped fend off several pirate attacks in recent days in the crowded shipping lane off Somalia's coast; in each case the culprits were released amid questions over jurisdiction to arrest them.

That drew criticism from the Obama administration, which killed three Somali pirates and arrested one in the dramatic April 12 rescue of an American cargo ship's captain. The surviving pirate was arrested and sent to New York for trial.

Releasing pirates "sends the wrong signal," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after meeting her Dutch counterpart Maxime Verhagen in Washington on Monday. Both ministers said they would push for NATO to begin arresting pirates.

Both NATO and the European Union have multinational flotillas operating under a mandate from the UN Security Council which tasks them with escorting World Food Programme ships and with patrolling the seas around the Horn of Africa. The mandate says nothing about how to treat captured pirates.

Angry Dutch lawmakers grilled the junior Defence Minister Jack de Vries about why a Dutch boarding party released the nine Somalis.

"We see piracy as a major problem but this weekend a Dutch ship detains pirates and then frees them," opposition lawmaker Ewout Irrgang said. "How can this happen? Do you agree that this is idiotic?"

De Vries admitted that Dutch prosecutors should have been consulted before the pirates were released.