A report in The Sunday Telegraph, quoting the Labour Party, said wealthy individuals had donated 17,500 pound to general election campaign funds but they had not been listed on his election return.

"The disclosure will severely embarrass the minister who has insisted that the donations, which the present Treasurer of the Leicester East Labour Party had never heard of, had been properly recorded," the report said.

While admitting that Mr Vaz had received the campaign donations of more than 17,500 pounds, a Labour spokesman insisted that all the money had been properly recorded in party accounts. "He then muddied the water by claiming that some of the money donated to the Vaz campaign and had been passed to the party nationally," the report said.

A report in the Sunday Times said Mr Vaz faced questions over whether he has broken the ministerial code after it was "revealed" that a businessman, whose 1,75,000 pound insurance dispute he helped to settle, has retained the minister's wife as a lawyer.

The code, set up by Mr Blair to stamp out sleaze, states that ministers must "scrupulously avoid" any conflict of interest involving their own business connections or those of their wives. Mr Vaz used his private ministerial suite at the foreign office to help Mr Amin Ali, a Bangladeshi national who owns a top restaurant, to resolve a dispute with an insurance company. The company had refused to pay a claim but relented after Mr Vaz became involved, the report said. (PTI) The daily said Mr Vaz and his wife took a five-day trip to Bangladesh in 1994 paid for by the same businessman. Mr Vaz correctly declared the trip in the MPs' register of interests, it said.

While Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said no ministerial rule had been broken by holding the meeting between Mr Ali and the insurance company in the ministerial suite, the newspaper said according to senior Tories there was an apparent conflict of interests.

Ms Maria Fernandes, Mr Vaz's wife, according to the report, "disclosed" that she is acting for a company which Mr Ali jointly owns as one of a few shareholders. Philip Conway, spokesman for Ms Fernandes, did not say whether Mr Ali retained Ms Fernandes before or after the insurance company meeting in September last year.

Describing it as a "potential breach of the ministerial code" Mr Andrew Lansley, shadow cabinet office minister said he would be writing to Mr Blair to demand an investigation. Ms Elizabeth Filkin, parliamentary commissioner for standards, last week launched inquiries on behalf of parliament's committee for standards and privileges into the whereabouts of the 1,7,500 pounds of election donations.

Mr Vaz, through his solicitor Mr Geoffrey Bindman denied all allegations, lodged with Mr Filkin. He has also promised to fight a separate inquiry into whether the Hinduja brothers used ministerial connections to obtain passports.

Mr Blair and his senior cabinet colleagues including foreign secretary Robin Cook have stood by Mr Vaz stating that he did not commit any irregularities.

In a strongly worded letter, leading community figures including Lord Patel, Lord King and baroness Uddin, expressed their "profound disquiet at the ferocious witch hunt that has been conducted against Mr Vaz, minister for Europe, over the past two weeks and, indeed, longer in a number of cases."

"We feel a deep sense of unease and hurt over the fact that Britain's first elected Asian Minister is being subjected to an obsessive campaign of denigration and fear for its long-term impact on the good community relations we have fought so hard to achieve and the aspirations of young Asian and Black people who wish to go into public life," they said.

(PTI)