Labour officials have begun a full investigation into the financial affairs of the First Minister Jack McConnell's constituency party.

They believe local funds in Motherwell and Wishaw have been misused, though they stress it has nothing directly to do with Mr McConnell.

Suspicions were originally raised about an �11,000 "black hole" in the accounts of the North Lanarkshire constituency's local Labour Party when a member who acts as auditor expressed concerns about the standard of book-keeping.

Labour has emphasised that neither Mr McConnell, MSP for the area, nor Frank Roy, its MP, are signatories to the accounts and are not involved.

Frank Roy MP does not sign the accounts

Party officials confirmed that, having examined paperwork supplied by the auditor, there were enough doubts to obtain a mandate which gives Labour's Scottish general secretary Lesley Quinn "full and unfettered access" to constituency accounts.

A Labour spokesman said: "Lesley Quinn's suspicion is that a member of the local Labour party may have used party funds to cover personal expenditure.

"Lesley believes the individual later replaced the money. But we don't yet know how much money was involved."

The reported concerns over the accounts prompted immediate calls from opposition parties for full openness from Labour, one year on from the "Officegate" affair which brought down former First Minister Henry McLeish.

Scots Tory leader David McLetchie said Mr McConnell's constituency appeared to have "fallen down on the job" of keeping its books in order.

Salutory lesson

He said of Mr McConnell: "He owes it to himself and the Scottish people to clear up whether there is any public money involved in these accounts, and whether there have been any breaches of the rules governing donations to political parties."

Scottish National Party leader John Swinney said the first minister must tackle the problem effectively.

He warned that the Officegate expenses row provided a salutory lesson.

Mr Swinney said: "As we saw with the McLeish affair, when allegations of this nature are made, the only way to end any suspicion of wrongdoing is to make all the fact fully available to public scrutiny.

"The harsh reality of the McLeish affair is that it was cover-up that led to his downfall and if Mr McConnell is to avoid damage both to his reputation and the office of first minister, he must clear this matter up at the first opportunity."

The period under scrutiny covers the financial years January to December 2000 and January to December 2001.