Malta has denied reports in the Daily Telegraph that it was to investigate the evidence of one of the key witnesses who helped convict the Lockerbie bomber.

According to the newspaper, the Maltese government wants to examine the claims of Tony Gauci, the shopkeeper who identified Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi as the man responsible for placing explosives on Pan Am flight 103.

Gauci ran a clothes shop in Swieqi, Malta, at the time and claimed that Megrahi bought a piece of clothing found among the debris of the aircraft in December 1988.

His evidence was crucial in securing the 2001 conviction of the former Libyan intelligence officer, but doubts have since been raised about Gauci's reliability.

The Telegraph quoted a Maltese legal official as saying: "Tony Gauci is an area we want to investigate more thoroughly and we are preparing for this."

But Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici told timesofmalta.com the report was untrue.

He said that since 1988 successive Maltese governments have always maintained that the bomb which downed the Pan Am flight 103 had not departed from Malta and ample proof of this was produced.

Megrahi was jailed for life for carrying out the atrocity in which 270 people died, including 11 people on the ground.

The 82-page trial judgment detailed how the three judges were satisfied Megrahi walked into Gauci's shop one day in 1988 and bought random items of clothing.

These were packed around the bomb that exploded in a suitcase on board the Pan Am Boeing 747 two weeks later, and Gauci picked out the Libyan as the man who bought the clothes.