php ssl connection timeout issue

Hi,

I am having trouble connecting to https sites using php's builtin ssl
functions.
I tried:
file_get_contents('https://securesite')
fsockopen('ssl://securesite', 443, $errno, $errstr,20)

and same errors every time:
SSL: connection timeout
Failed to enable crypto

Call to openssl_error_string() returns no error.
Curl worked both within php and as standalone client.
The strange thing is that the connection seemed to be dropped immediately
upon contact with the server, i.e., the call to the above functions failed
immediately, which I think contradicts the "timeout" error.

Any tips on the cause of this issue or how to debug this is appreciated.

Regards,

Jerry.