BELGRADE, Aug 22 (Reuter) - A senior European Union official said on Tuesday that she was unable to question the Serbian authorities on plans to resettle refugees in the mainly Albanian province of Kosovo because they refused to meet her.

Emma Bonino, the EU's commissioner for humanitarian affairs, said the head of the Serbian refugee crisis committee and a top Foreign Ministry official had both cancelled meetings without explanation.

"It was the first time that anywhere in the world while on a mission of humanitarian assistance I was unable to meet the local authorities," Bonino told a news conference.

Bonino is on the last leg of a three-day trip to former Yugoslavia to assess the needs of tens of thousands of refugees displaced by recent fighting.

About 2,700 Serbs who fled the capture of the rebel Krajina enclave by Croatian forces have been sent to the southern province of Kosovo in Serbia where the population of more than two million is at least 90 percent Albanian.

Despite the small numbers, Albanian leaders, the United States and the European Union expressed alarm that the influx could raise tensions in the area where friction between Albanians and ruling minority Serbs runs high.

"It is known it is tense there and I wanted to raise the question. Unfortunately I didn't get the opportunity to do so."

The European Union has donated about $19 million of emergency aid to help house and feed the 200,000 refugees that poured onto roads across ex-Yugoslavia to flee fighting in the last six weeks.

Bonino said she had also wanted to discuss with the Serbian authorities how to channel funds for the long-term needs of 165,000 Krajina refugees now in Serbian-led Yugoslavia.

But the EU commissioner was forced instead to settle for discussions with local representatives of international aid organisations and visits to refugee centres.