The PCC has been accused of cosiness with tabloids and royals

"The issue of personal privacy, at least so far as the PCC and I are concerned, is not about the... famous and the infamous.

"It is more than anything else about ordinary people who make up the vast majority of our successful complainants.

"For them, our role as mediator and conciliator - the task for which we were established - is what is crucially important because it delivers quick, cost-free justice," he said.

Speaking to the Commonwealth Press Union in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, Professor Pinker also said the UK had one of the toughest press codes in the world.

And he insisted that the industry should continue to regulate itself, rather than be subject to statutory controls which could hinder freedom of expression.

Privacy complaint

Last month the PCC upheld a complaint from Prime Minister Tony Blair that two newspapers had invaded his son Euan's privacy.

Vanessa Feltz had a privacy complaint rejected

The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail newspapers were censured for reporting that he had applied to Oxford.

TV presenter Vanessa Feltz had a complaint about an article on a relationship with a former boyfriend thrown out, on the grounds that she had talked about her own private life in the past.

The PCC recently denied having a cosy relationship with the tabloids and St James's Palace.

The Daily Telegraph accused it of giving the News of the World the "green light" to publish a story about Prince Harry's drug-taking.

Code of conduct

But the PCC said it did not green light stories - it merely responded to complaints.

The PCC works by administering a Code of Practice adhered to by the press.

Critical adjudications, when a newspaper or magazine is found to have gone against this code, are printed in full and with due prominence.

The PCC says adherence to the code is written into the contracts of most editors - which gives the PCC real teeth.

The chair of the PCC, Lord Wakeham, has temporarily stepped down to answer questions in the US about his role, as a member of the audit committee, in the collapse of energy giant Enron.