Luminescent, mesoporous, and bioactive europium-doped hydroxyapatite (HAp:Eu(3+)) nanofibers and microbelts have been prepared by a combination of sol-gel and electrospinning processes with a cationic surfactant as template. The obtained multifunctional hydroxyapatite nanofibers and microbelts, which have mesoporous structure and red luminescence, were tested as drug carriers by investigating their drug-storage/release properties with ibuprofen (IBU) as model drug. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution (HR) TEM, FTIR spectroscopy, N(2) adsorption/desorption, photoluminescence (PL) spectra, and UV/Vis spectroscopy were used to characterize the structural, morphological, textural, and optical properties of the resulting samples. The results reveal that the multifunctional hydroxyapatites exhibit irregular mesostructure, and have fiber-like and beltlike morphologies with sizes of several hundred nanometers in width and several millimeters in length. The IBU-loaded HAp:Eu(3+) system shows red luminescence of Eu(3+) ((5)D(0)-(7)F(0.1,2)) under UV irradiation and controlled release of IBU. In addition, the emission intensity of Eu(3+) in the drug carrier system varies with the released amount of IBU, and thus drug release can be easily tracked and monitored by the change in luminescence intensity.