The airport built the terminal without permission

The airport made the claims on Tuesday after researching objections sent to Warwick District Council.

It said the actual number of complaints was small as individuals had sent up to 10 letters each.

But the council, who received 2,500 complaints, branded the airport's claims as misleading.

Research shows the number of people who support the airport and low fares flights from Coventry Airport significantly outnumber those who oppose the airport's development Kimberley Kay, Coventry Airport

Coventry Airport said the number of individual complaints were equivalent to less than 4% of the number of Thomsonfly bookings that had been made from Coventry postcodes.

And it claimed "vast numbers of the complaints" were made on prepared letters taken from the website of Campaign Against The Expansion of Coventry Airport CAECA.

The airport also questioned the validity of complaints it had received about noisy aircraft, saying the majority did not correspond with the actual aircraft movements.

She added local residents had also sent "congratulatory messages" and claimed feedback forms received from passengers had all supported the expansion of the airport.

Kimberley Kay, the airport's communications director, said: "Research shows the number of people who support the airport and low fares flights from Coventry Airport significantly outnumber those who oppose the airport's development.

"Now that the consultation process is back underway it will be possible to address the genuine concerns of local stakeholders."

Warwick District Council only found out about the airport's claims when contacted by BBC News Online.

'New complaints'

Spokesman Richard Broker said there seemed to be "confusion" over the airport's figures.

"There are two different sets of figures. Firstly the 2,500 objections we received which are all logged and are open to public inspection - nothing is hidden.

"Secondly is the complaints about noise. They seem to be making an issue of repeat complaints but that is what people do because the aircraft keep coming.

"We ask people to keep a diary on when they are disturbed by noise. We would expect a bit of a difference between the time they write down when they hear the noise and when the plane went over."

He added: "We have been getting four or five new address complaints per day for the last three months.

"Our noise enforcement officers are overwhelmed. It's completely unprecedented."