The Home Office, which has since removed the link, was alerted to the issue by the BBC on Monday after a private Internet user informed the broadcaster.

"It was a link from the Home Office website to the Technical Advisory Board, which is an external website," a ministry spokesman told AFP. "It is their website that was hacked and re-directed to a porn site."

"We were alerted today, we took immediate action, we removed the link and we are now investigating."

According to the BBC, the Home Office said the site it had initially linked to had since become defunct, and a new company had taken it over, without giving details.

The revelation is the second pornography-related embarrassment for the ministry in as many weeks.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was last week forced to refund expense claims filed on her behalf which showed her husband had watched two pay-per-view pornographic films.

Smith has said she was "mortified" to discover the pay-per-view movies had been submitted inadvertently as part of her expense claim for running her family home.

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