The London Daily News

News Desk

De La Rue the British company that prints banknotes has warned that the quality of some of its production of banknotes have been "compromised" raising fears that the security of banknotes may have been compromised.

Production at the De La Rue printing plant in Hampshire has already been halted, until an investigation is undertaken into the "production irregularities".

Security measures employed by De La Rue include watermarks, embedded thread and optical devices.

The Times has reported that De La Rue "declined to comment on whether inferior paper had ended up in notes now in circulation and it was not clear how long the problem had gone undetected".