Jail overcrowding has become a major problem

The record was reached last week when officials confirmed the total number of inmates topped 73,231.

But recent instructions from Home Secretary David Blunkett to release prison statistic once a week instead of daily meant the total was not made public.

Although the figure of 73,231 is higher than any previously-released totals a Prison Service spokesman said it was not a new record.

That had been set on one of the preceding days on which figures were not released.

But the spokesman denied the service was attempting to hide anything.

"We are releasing the prison population on a weekly basis to make sure that we give authoritative figures so we can plot a weekly trend, " he said.

Extra places

The home secretary's order led to accusations by the opposition of "panic" over jail overcrowding.

Since last August the prison population has grown by nearly 2,000 inmates - the equivalent of four medium-sized jails.

In this month's budget Mr Blunkett received enough cash to provide another 1,000 prison places, bringing the total capacity to 78,700 by 2006.

But the Home Office's own predictions say that between 8,000 and 22,000 extra places will be required on top of that total to meet demand.

England and Wales now have more prisoners than anywhere else in western Europe and imprison more people per capita than Libya, Malaysia or Burma.