The girl, in her twenties and made up to resemble a cat, boards trains wearing a long black overcoat and carrying a portable stereo. When the doors close she throws off her coat and dances to the stereo in a black latex girdle with red silk ribbons, black fishnet stockings with pink ribbons around her thighs, black boots to just above the knee and shiny, black, fingerless gloves.

After a bump-and-grind routine using the carriage’s grab handles and vertical poles as props, she takes a collection and leaves the train.

Michela Proietti, a journalist, saw her when she was on her way home last Monday. She wrote in the daily Corriere Della Sera: “I was on the platform at the Porta Genova stationbetween 11.30 and midnight,” said Proietti. “She was very good looking and she had cat’s ears made of cloth.”

The girl danced for two stops and at one point she sat on a young woman’s lap, who thought it was all very funny. “All the passengers seemed to enjoy the show. It was not at all vulgar — everyone was smiling and laughing.”

Ms Proietti received an avalanche of e-mails from readers who said they had seen the phantom lap-dancer on different days at different times and on other lines. Most said that it made a welcome change from the beggars and dubious musicians who normally inhabit Milan’s Metropolitana.

London Underground said: “We would frown upon any behaviour that would upset other passengers.”

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