Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau

Lady Blackstone, answering questions, said she understood there had been "exploratory discussions" between the Police National Training College and two universities "about the possibility of accrediting courses".

But a spokeswoman for her department said later the discussions had not led anywhere and there have been no firm proposals for courses.

During the discussion, Tory ex-Cabinet minister Lord Campbell of Croy said: "Detectives in fiction have not been short of intellectual erudition - for example Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Inspector Maigret, though Inspector Clouseau must be excluded since the little grey cells were not working for him.

"But the detective's role in police forces is not highly regarded and, unfortunately, it doesn't seem to lead to the higher ranks."

Expertise

Lady Blackstone congratulated Lord Campbell on his knowledge of crime fiction, and said that the Police Staff College at Bramshill, Hampshire, was thinking of expanding its training for serving officers and senior ranks.

A past president of the Police Superintendents Association, Labour's Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, criticised the policy of many police forces of moving CID officers back to uniformed duty after three to five years.

"This has destroyed the concept of a career detective," he said.

"That is clearly to the disadvantage of crime detection, leading to such things as advertisements in the Metropolitan Police, for example, to bring back retired detectives on short-term contracts."

Lady Blackstone replied: "Expertise in an area of this sort is time-consuming to develop and build up.

"Where it has been acquired, I share your view that it is a pity that people are then moved on to quite different kinds of duty where they are unable to use that expertise."

She also endorsed criticisms by Liberal Democrat frontbencher Lord McNally about past "prejudice" in some police forces against graduates.