On Sunday police informed the singer he is not wanted in the country.

"There is no prohibition on him not to leave," said Lieutenant Colonel Pol Pithey, chief of the Municipal Police's Foreigners Department.

Police say they cannot deport him because he has not broken any Cambodian laws.

Reputation fears

But the government is worried that Glitter's presence draws attention to the country's reputation as a sex tourism destination for paedophiles.

Glitter's pop career ended in 1999 when he was convicted of making indecent images of children under 16 between January and November 1997.

The singer served two months of a four-month sentence after admitting 54 charges of possessing child pornography downloaded from the internet.

He had downloaded material that included images of girls as young as two being abused.

Mr Pithey said Glitter, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, would "make things much easier" if he left Cambodia voluntarily.

Passport confiscated

The singer has been living in Phnom Penh for the last six months.

Cambodian authorities had confiscated his passport but gave it back to him last week after Glitter gave an undertaking that he would not travel outside the capital without informing the police.

News photographers said Glitter had not left his Phnom Penh guesthouse in days and has a hired motorcycle taxi driver to buy food for him.