This is another cover up. I am sure the education committee will look carefully at this

Mike Russell, SNP

The information was contained in a Scottish Qualifications Authority e-mail dated 9 August - the day before pupils were due to receive their results.

It has also emerged that the SQA had the statistics before the results came out in August.

A copy of the e-mail from the SQA was submitted as evidence to the Scottish Parliament's education committee investigation into the exams fiasco.

Four weeks after the e-mail was sent, the SQA said it could not publicly release the pass rate figures because results were being re-checked.

Results were down for the first time in years

And a month further on the exams body said it would not be releasing the pre-appeals figure at all, blaming the pressure of work on staff.

The executive said the figure had been immediately overtaken by events and the SQA said it decided not to release the figure because the integrity of the data was flawed.

Problems with the Higher and Certificate of Sixth Year Studies exam results surfaced as students awaited their grades.

Some did not receive their certificates on time and others were handed incomplete certificates.

That resulted in many students being hampered in getting approval for a place at university.

True statistics

Although a number of universities said they would accept students before their results were confirmed, there were inevitable delays for those entering the clearing process.

The executive and SQA denied that the pass rates represented the true statistics but said they could not say what the figures were as some appeals were still under way.

Opposition parties have accused the SQA and the executive of a cover-up.

Mike Russell MSP, education spokesman for the Scottish National Party said: "These figures are staggering, and we also find that these figures were known and not published.

"If they had been published then it would have been quite clear that something was rather wrong with Higher Still.

"This is another cover up. I am sure the education committee will look carefully at this."

Brian Monteith: "Marking must be done properly"

Tory spokesman Brian Monteith said the new-style Higher Still exams introduced this year, with their unit assessments, had clearly caused problems.

He said: "There's problems with marking, they've hidden this from the public.

"The e-mail has only just recently come out and what we have to do is ensure that in future Higher Still is changed so that students can manage it and we have to ensure that the marking is properly done."

Meanwhile, a deal appeared imminent in a row over the release of government papers relating to the controversy.

The executive has been criticised by opposition MSPs for refusing to give the two parliamentary inquiries documents containing advice from civil servants

However, it was thought MSPs could be offered a summary of what was in the secret papers with committee convenors seeing the actual documents.

The Tories said they would accept this compromise.