BELEAGUERED Home Secretary Charles Clarke was today giving new details about the foreign prisoners scandal.

In a statement to MPs on Wednesday, he promised to update them by the end of the week.

The crucial information, yet to be released by the Home Office, concerns whether any of the 1,023 foreigners committed further crimes after they should have been considered for deportation.

If inquiries have revealed any such cases, Mr Clarke would almost certainly be forced to resign.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has already rejected a resignation offer from Mr Clarke. But, at the time, Mr Blair said he did not know that 288 of the cases had occurred after Ministers were alerted that there was a problem.

Names of the mistakenly-freed prisoners have been passed to police and probation chiefs in an effort to trace them. The confidential list is thought to focus on the 80 most serious offenders, including killers, rapists, paedophiles and other sex offenders.

More than a quarter of the serious offenders being sought by police were not registered on the Police National Computer, it was claimed last night.

BBC 2's Newsnight said the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) had appealed for help from regional police forces to search their own databases for more than 20 of the mistakenly released foreign nationals who were not on the national system.

They included one murderer and three sex offenders, including one rapist, the programme said, quoting "two very well-placed sources".