Can a highly virtual nucleon experience final state interactions in electron-nucleus scattering?

We discuss how the virtuality of the struck particle may affect the final state interactions in electron-nucleus scattering. The extent to which short-range correlations inhibit rescatterings taking place within the range of the repulsive core of the nucleon-nucleon interaction is quantitatively analyzed within the eikonal approach, based on the on-shell approximation for the nucleon-nucleon scattering amplitude. The possible modifications of the amplitude associated with the virtuality are then studied within the framework of a nonrelativistic model. The results indicate that the accuracy of the on-shell approximation strongly depends upon the momentum, and turns out to be rather good in the kinematical region relevant to the analysis of the available inclusive data at large momentum transfer and low energy loss.