The U.S. dollar traded mixed against major currencies in late New York trading on Tuesday as the unrest in Libya continued and a European Central Bank (ECB) official warned of interest rate hike in euro zone.

The protests in Libya might escalate as its leader Moammar Gadhafi proclaimed not stepping down on Tuesday, stimulating risk- aversion appetite in the market to buoy safe-haven currencies.

The Swiss franc surged for the fourth consecutive trading day. The dollar against the Swiss franc fell below 0.94 in late trading session on Tuesday.

Yves Mersch, the ECB governing council member said Monday that the ECB might adjust its monetary policy to address the inflation and debt problem, raising speculations that the interest rate hike in euro zone might be the option.

His remarks helped push up the euro on Tuesday, however, it failed to top the critical level of 1.37 against the dollar in late trading session.

Meanwhile, the Conference Board reported on Tuesday that the U. S. consumer confidence rose to 70.4 in February from 64.8 in January, the highest level in three years, showing that the recovery of U.S. consumption was strong.

The dollar pared earlier loss against the Japanese yen, following Moody's Investors Service's downgrade Japan's rating outlook on Tuesday. The rating agency cut its outlook on the government of Japan's Aa2 credit rating to negative from stable.

The dollar index fell to 77.613 from 77.739 late Monday in European trading.

In late Tuesday trading, the dollar bought 82.71 yen, comparing with 83.11 late Friday, and the euro fell to 1.3662 dollars from 1. 3680.

The British pound also fell to 1.6145 dollars from 1.6222. The dollar fell from 0.9472 to 0.9383 against Swiss francs, but rose to 0.9906 Canadian dollars from 0.9830.