The U.S. State Department said Saturday that it reviews all information pertaining to Iranian military involvement in the hemisphere, but that it could not vouch for the report.
"We have no evidence to support this claim and therefore no reason to believe the assertions made in the article are credible," the department said in a statement.
In the wake of the questions raised by the report, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro described the allegations as an "extravagant lie."
"There is an international war machine against the prestige of Venezuelan democracy, against the prestige of the Bolivarian Revolution," Maduro said, referring to the country's social revolution. "There is no other way to describe this information that has spread through international media and spokespeople, ex-(Venezuelan) servicemembers."
According to Die Welt, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed an agreement in October that included the development of a common medium-range missile.
The goal, the paper reported, is to protect Venezuela from air attacks. Chavez in the past has accused the United States of plotting to invade his country.
The alleged project includes the construction of a command-and-control center, watchtowers and bunkers in which warheads and rocket fuel can be stored, Die Welt reported.
According to the story, Iran has paid tens of millions of dollars for the preliminary phase of the project.
CNN has not independently confirmed the report. But the author of the article, Clemens Wergin, says his sources are credible.
