Imported eggs are not being tested for salmonella by the Food Standards Agency in accordance with government advice, despite major outbreaks in Europe, the BBC has learned.

In May 2001 the government's advisory committee on microbiological safety of food recommended that a snapshot survey of all eggs be carried out to monitor whether salmonella was present.

Tested eggs are marked with the Lion symbol

But BBC Radio Four's Farming Today says the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has failed to carry out the tests.

However, the FSA says this would not have prevented the outbreak and it has issued separate guidance to deal with the threat of salmonella in imported eggs.

Two weeks ago, two people died and hundreds of others were ill after a salmonella outbreak caused by Spanish eggs.

An FSA spokesman told BBC News Online the agency had since issued mandatory guidelines to the importers of Spanish eggs to heat-treat them.

But he said the key issue when dealing with eggs, whether British or imported, was that they should not be used uncooked unless pasteurised.

Over the last years the number of imported eggs has risen from 2% to 10 % to provide the 30 million eggs eaten every day in the UK.

Lion mark

The industry voiced fears over the plans for the snapshot testing of eggs for salmonella as it would reveal the addresses of poultry farmers, who may then be at risk of attack from animal rights activists.

The British Egg Information Service (BEIS), which represents egg producers, currently tests about 50,000 British eggs a year.

These eggs are marked by the Lion brand mark and come from flocks which are vaccinated against salmonella.

The BEIS says independent laboratory tests on over 200,000 Lion eggs since 1999 have all been negative for salmonella.

But the FSA spokesman told BBC News Online the agency "did not accept that Lion mark eggs are necessarily salmonella-free".

"All uncooked eggs can have salmonella," he said.

The BEIS is now calling for tests on imported eggs to be carried out as routine and ban on any which are found to contain salmonella.