Patrizia D'Addario claims Silvio Berlusconi knew she was a prostitute

Patrizia D'Addario's claims that she had sex with the prime minister at the end of a party at his mansion in Rome last November have dogged Mr Berlusconi, 73, for months.

"The premier knew that I was an escort," Patrizia D'Addario said in a live television interview on Thursday night. "I spent the whole night with him and everyone there knew that I was an escort. He knew too."

Miss D'Addario said she attended two parties at Mr Berlusconi's residence, at both of which glamorous young women in black dresses outnumbered men.

The male guests included Gianpaolo Tarantini, a Bari-based businessman who says he recruited more than 30 models and actresses for the prime minister's private parties and is being investigated for allegedly procuring prostitutes and dealing in cocaine.

"To me it seemed like a harem," Miss D'Addario, 42, told a current affairs programme on a channel run by public broadcaster RAI. "There was the prime minister and Gianpaolo Tarantini and then more than 20 girls. We danced, we sang."

Miss D'Addario was interviewed on a live videolink by a journalist in Bari, with her face projected onto huge screens in a studio in Rome.

She repeated claims, made to The Daily Telegraph during an interview in August, that there were other prostitutes present at the two dinners she attended. "I was not the only escort," she said.

Miss D'Addario said she had used her mobile phone to record pictures and audio of her encounter with Mr Berlusconi in order to protect herself, not to blackmail the billionaire media mogul.

She said she never intended that details of the purported encounter should be made public, but that she had to turn over the audio recordings when questioned about the affair by prosecutors in Bari.

Mr Berlusconi has admitted that he is "no saint" but said he cannot remember Miss D'Addario and insists he has never paid for sex.