Nigel Griffiths has led a campaign for better safety in holiday hotels

Labour MP Nigel Griffiths wants more safety checks at holiday hotels.

Fifteen years ago he helped launch the campaign group CO-Gas Safety, with survivors of carbon monoxide poisoning, to call for industry-wide change.

Stacey Rodgers, whose son Dominic, 10, died after being poisoned by the gas, said every home should have a detector.

Carbon monoxide is the silent killer, you don't know it is there Mother Stacey Rodgers

Ms Rodgers, from Fartown, Huddersfield, lost her son in 2004, after carbon monoxide seeped through the floor of his bedroom as he slept.

She said: "There were no symptoms it was just a normal night when I put Dominic to bed.

"Dominic went for a post-mortem and in the afternoon the coroner phoned up stating it was carbon monoxide poisoning.

"I actually had to ask my family what it was because I did not know what it was.

"After losing Dominic within three weeks I started to campaign because I thought at the time, I am either going to kill myself or I can try to do something.

"Within the last year we have taken it to parliament and raised an all new parliamentary report on carbon monoxide poisoning.

Independent inspection

"Carbon monoxide is the silent killer you don't know it is there that is why people need to go out and get a test done by a Corgi-registered installer and fit a carbon monoxide detector in every house."

In the UK, about 30 people die each year from being poisoned by the gas.

The Health and Safety executive said the deaths were normally the result of badly fitted flues or appliances.

Mr Griffiths, along with CO-Gas Safety campaigners, raised money to send independent safety experts to inspect resorts in Spain, Portugal and Greece

CARBON MONOXIDE The gas is a product of incomplete combustion of natural or petroleum gas Blocked flues and chimneys mean the gas cannot escape and is therefore inhaled Fifty people in the UK die each year in their homes from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. Inhalation reduces the blood's ability to carry oxygen which starves organs and cells Chimneys, flues and gas appliances and heating systems should be inspected regularly

The former consumer affairs minister also recently met leaders of Abta, which represents travel agents.

He said: "What the report showed was that there were death traps and incidents in almost all the resorts that were checked out.

"We presented the significant findings to the major tour operators to their managing directors and chief executives and they agreed to take firm action."

Last September four Britons were among 13 guests at an alpine hostel in Tyrol, Austria, who were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning from a leak from a faulty heating system after some of the guests complained of dizziness, headaches and blurred vision.

'Silent killer'

Only months earlier in May, 20 schoolchildren were hospitalised following a suspected leak of the poisonous gas while they were in the church next to St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, Langwith Junction, Derbyshire.

A businessman in west Wales died in bed and his unconscious wife miscarried their 16-week-old baby in April 2005 after being poisoned by the gas from an unmaintained boiler for two years. Their pet dog also died.

The bodies of campers Deborah Alker, 45, and Daryl Porter, 40, from Bristol, were later discovered after they took a lit barbecue into their tent at a Somerset camp in April 2004.

In October that year Nicola Jan Wyness, 36, and her three-year-old son James Charlie Arkell were found dead in their home in Greet, Gloucestershire, after succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning.

The gas, dubbed the "silent killer," can be detected using a carbon monoxide detector and by recognising the medical symptoms, although many of these can be mistaken for flu.

Yellow or brown staining on appliances, increased condensation on windows, pilot lights which frequently blow out or yellow rather than blue flames are among the tell-tale signs that the gas is leaking in the home.