According to the Independent daily, bank accounts were set up in the name of a British family and used to raise millions of pounds in loans which were then channelled into businesses owned by the Sharif family. The Independent based its claims on documents prepared for court actions five years ago against several close relatives of the premier. The report is not the first to make corruption allegations against Sharif.

Last month Britain's Observer weekly claimed Sharif had siphoned off millions of dollars from his country' coffers. Both reports came after Rehman Malik, the former number two in Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), wrote an unofficial account of the FIA probe into Nawaz Sharif's businesses.

Malik is hiding in London after being suspended from his job, chargedwith corruption and imprisoned without trial for a year. Sharif's government strongly denounced the observer report as ``incorrect .. And a figment of the imagination'' of Malik.

The FIA was asked in 1993 to investigate corruption and money laundering allegations against Sharif after his dismissal as premier, but charges were dropped when he returned to power last year.

According to the Independent, an unnamed senior politician used the names of three members of a family in Essex, east of London, to open international bank deposits totalling five million pounds.

The Qazi family, who had known the future politician when he was a student here in the late 1960s and early 1970s, say they did not know their names had been used until they began receiving letters from the US banks. The letter soon began warning them of failure to repay loans against the deposits. Malik's report said the accounts were used to raise loans for firms owned by Sharif and his family.

The Pakistani opposition, including crickethero turned politician Imran Khan, had demanded an impartial probe into the corruption allegations against the Pakistan premier. On September 30, Pakistani officials said President Muhammad Rafiq Tarar had rejected a report sent to him by Malik accusing Sharif of corruption.