  The properties of the chiral phase transition at finite temperature and
chemical potential are investigated within a nonlocal covariant extension of
the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model based on a separable quark-quark interaction. We
consider both the situation in which the Minkowski quark propagator has poles
at real energies and the case where only complex poles appear. In the
literature, the latter has been proposed as a realization of confinement. In
both cases, the behaviour of the physical quantities as functions of T and \mu
is found to be quite similar. In particular, for low values of T the chiral
transition is always of first order and, for finite quark masses, at certain
"end point" the transition turns into a smooth crossover. In the chiral limit,
this "end point" becomes a "tricritical" point. Our predictions for the
position of these points are similar, although somewhat smaller, than previous
estimates. Finally, the relation between the deconfining transition and chiral
restoration is also discussed.
