BEIJING - The host city of the 2008 Summer Games is considering hospitalizing the mentally ill, relaxing restrictions on religious services and giving many businesses and factories a holiday as possible contingency measures during the Olympics.

The city office overseeing Olympic preparations discussed dozens of possible moves for the Games at an internal meeting Thursday, ranging from limits on the use of cars to banning the posting of handbills around the city, the state-run Beijing Morning Post said Friday.

Among the measures discussed, the newspaper said, were shutting down heavily polluting factories to clean up the air, giving most Beijing residents a 16-day holiday to alleviate traffic and allowing foreigners to worship in groups, which is officially outlawed - although the ban rarely is enforced.

A spokesman for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Environmental and Construction Headquarters Office, which conducted the meeting, confirmed the newspaper report but stressed no decisions have been made. "Everything is still under discussion," spokesman Zhou Jiawang said.

Chinese leaders have staked the country's prestige on running a successful Games and have raised expectations in the sports and business worlds the event will set a new standard for the Olympic movement. But the city often chokes with pollution and is gridlocked in traffic, posing logistical and planning challenges.

City officials and the Beijing Olympic organizing committee previously have said a host of contingency plans were being looked at to deal with pollution and traffic and ensure Chinese regulations comply with international norms during the Games. The Beijing Morning Post report was the most detailed glimpse yet of the range of issues.

The newspaper said the city was considering hospitalizing all mentally ill people "to avoid creating any harm to society," and expelling many of the city's 1 million migrant workers.

Zhou denied such a wide-scale expulsion order was on the table. He said ordering out the migrants was proposed by one of the advisers at the meeting, but that the newspaper report was incorrect.

The report underscores the sensitivities human-rights issues hold for China in its Olympic ambitions. Chinese leaders have promised that playing host to the Olympics will improve respect for human rights.