Last week it was revealed that around 40 police officers had allegedly been involved in illicitly helping Libyan security forces.

According to the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the German Criminal Police (BKA) have been helping train security personnel in China for the past two years in the run-up to this August's Olympic Games.

It also alleges that the BKA helped school agents from the repressive regime of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. Germany currently uses a base at Termez, in the south of Uzbekistan, for its operations in Afghanistan.

Controversy and debate

The revelations, partly announced in advance by the paper, come in the wake of a massive public debate in Germany sparked by the revelation that a private firm had been using officers either on

holiday or retired to train Libyan forces from 2005-6.

The German government has denied any involvement in the affair, insisting that the training was in no way authorized by Berlin.

Parties across the political spectrum have been putting pressure on the government to explain its role in the training of 120 Libyan troops between December 2005 and June 2006.

Government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm earlier this week conceded that a private German security firm may have trained members of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's elite corps but denied reports that federal police and soldiers took part with Berlin's blessing.