Using accented characters in permalinks

Hi,

I have a question noone seems to have answered. How can I place accented characters (i.e. foreign language characters) in to WordPress permalinks, and therefore into WordPress page URLs? Character set settings do not enable this feature. If I enter a foreign accent character into WordPress permalink, it replaces it with a non-accented equivalent. Why? My titles show the correct accents, so why not the page URL as well?

I am amazed by the number of foreign WordPress blogs that do not use the correct language accents. The ability to do this must surely help SEO as well, since people searching for keywords will use their native language.

WordPress stupidly assumes the whole world is using plain ASCII!

Any pointers appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark