Ms Yousafzai said she was disappointed that the prime ministers of India and Pakistan were not attending the award ceremony.

But correspondents say that the presence of Ms Yousafzai and her Indian co-winner in Oslo has attracted hundreds of people into the freezing streets hoping to get a glimpse of them.

The Nobel committee said earlier that it was important that a Muslim and a Hindu, a Pakistani and an Indian, had joined in what it called a common struggle for education and against extremism.