I have no experience with oil powered heating, but if it is anything like a diesel engine, you need to let the air out of the pipework.
Can you find the oil pump? If you can, i would follow the output pipe as far as i can and then slacken off the connection at the furthest end away from the pump. I would have thought you would need to have the pump running to get the pressure up to force the air out. I have no idea what the operating pressure is so i don't know how dangerous this would be, or how much oil would come out. If you dribble diesel onto your drive outside it isn't much of a problem. Onto your carpet or up your wall i can see as being a little annoying.
That is how i would approach the problem if your boiler was mine. There may even be a bleed nipple which needs to be opened to let the air out.
If you have to prime the pump itself, i would have thought there would be a manual way of lifting oil into it with a manual lever somewhere between the pump and the tank. Or maybe a plastic/rubber bulb. As is used to squeeze to move the diesel on some cars.
Rob, December 2008