A loose source routing method is provided to transfer an IP packet from a transmission source gateway to a transfer destination gateway by way of ATM nodes, which are freely designated. At the transmission source gateway, the IP packet given from a user LAN is dissolved into ATM cells containing a BOM cell whose destination address designates the transfer destination gateway. In addition, at least one pseudo BOM cell whose destination address designates an ATM node in the ATM network is added and is located at a top place of a cell stream constructed by the dissolved ATM cells. Thus, the cell stream is transferred from the transmission source gateway to the designated ATM node in accordance with the destination address of the pseudo BOM cell. The designated ATM node discards the pseudo BOM cell so that the original BOM cell is now located at the top place of the cell stream. Then, the cell stream is transferred from the ATM node to the transfer destination gateway in accordance with the destination address of the BOM cell. The transfer destination gateway assembles the ATM cells into the IP packet, which is then sent to a user LAN.