He is a just another accountancy student but José’s secret sideline enables him to live in a luxurious apartment in one of the most desirable parts of the capital.

The 27-year-old Argentinian is one of Britain’s growing number of online gay agency escorts, selling his company to wealthy, older admirers.

“I see a lot of people in the top fields — businessmen, politicians — but I’m not going to kiss and tell,” he said. “I have recognised important people a number of times. When they say to me they’re sure I know who they are, I play dumb.”

Lord Browne of Madingley was so ashamed of meeting his boyfriend through an internet agency that he lied to the High Court, lost his job and £15 million and faces a possible perjury charge.

The BP chief executive’s downfall has shed light on a growing industry, now estimated to be worth £1 million a year, introducing male prostitutes to clients through the web.

The internet has revolutionised the escort scene, providing a mixture of discretion and speed. It provides instant access to sexual partners, cutting out the need for dating and small talk.

José is eloquent, intelligent and open about using his looks to financial advantage.

“It’s very expensive to study here if you want to live on your own and eat well and have a decent life,” he said. “My father is a businessman. We never had problems with money back home. My family pay my basic living but I like to have a better life than basic. I have a nice flat in the West End that I pay £1,500 a month for.”

José’s profile appears on Gay London Escorts, a website that works like a classified advertising section. Each young man has his own page, with photographs, physical description, mobile phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

“I got into it through a friend from college who was ‘renting’ [working as a gay prostitute]. I was stressed out because I didn’t have enough money to do the things I wanted to do. My friend said: ‘You’re nice-looking. It’s better than working in some s*** restaurant.’ The first time was when somebody called my friend and I went on his behalf. Lots of the pictures online are false so you can pretend to be anybody. It was at the Dorchester. He was in his 40s. He wasn’t attractive and it was obviously awkward. I was so nervous but it’s just acting. You switch to cruise control.

“Sometimes I can see three a week, sometimes five, sometimes nine.”

Online escorting has become a boom industry. Peter McDougall, 25, a website designer, launched Versatile Escorts in Edinburgh last October and already has 26 men on his books.

Stephen Coote, founder of the GAY to Z online listings directory, said “escort agency” is his customers’ second most popular search term.

The campaigner Peter Tatchell said: “The mobile phone and internet have given sex workers much greater independence. They have become in effect self-employed businessmen.”

José is one of them. “I do a lot of travelling. I’ve been to the South of France and Italy. But I don’t really enjoy stuff like that — where you’ve just got to make them happy. I’m not a Filipino slave.

“My clients take me to the top restaurants in London, but with my friends I prefer to go to other places. Even though one night I might be drinking the most expensive Château Lafite, I’d rather be drinking lager with my mates.

“Some people have tried to get me to stay with them, offering all sorts of money. I tell them I’m not selling my soul. That’s not freedom for me,” José said.

“If my parents found out, my mother would die and my brother would kill me. Now my priority is to finish my studies and get on with my life. I want to get out of it when I can.”

The uglier side of escorting is something Michael knows plenty about. As a 16-year-old, he fled North Wales. “Back there I was literally the only gay in the village,” he said. He was quickly signed up by a London agency.

“They knew that I was under 18 but were willing to let it go because they knew they could make a lot of money from a 16-year-old who looked 14.

“I was pretty messed up on drugs and all the clients back then have merged into one. I was making £2,000-£2,500 a week but most of it went on drugs. I was doing coke, keta-mine and pills.”

Online gay escort agencies tread a fine line to remain within the law, which prohibits living off immoral earnings. If the businesses openly sold men for sex, they would effectively become cyberpimps and liable to prosecution. The Terrence Higgins Trust, which strives to give health advice to escorts, finds agencies are sometimes suspicious of its approaches, fearing that they may be the police.

Michael was paid cash by clients, then he handed a commission to the agency.

“I’ve been taken to the Dorchester and all the best hotels around Park Lane. At first it was tough because I didn’t understand the surroundings.

“I was turning up at the posh places with jeans and a baseball cap and getting dirty looks. The doormen at the top hotels know this goes on so sometimes they stop you, but you learn how to get past them — like by pretending you’re on the phone and hoping they’re too polite to stop you.

“I’ve had drunks who tried to pin me down and beat me up. I wouldn’t encourage anyone into this trade. It’s emotionally draining and plays on your conscience.”

The industry is changing as Britain opens its doors to acquisitive young men from all over the world. At 22, Michael is retiring.

“There are loads more escorts now. My work slowed down because I wouldn’t bargain with people. I’m not a tin of beans to be bartered over,” Michael said.

“It’s a mixture of British and foreign people coming in: Brazilians, South Africans.

“I spent some money on clothes, some on a £1,000-a-month flat and frittered a lot. But I managed to save nearly £30,000, which I’ve just put down as a deposit on a house back in Wales.

“I’ve been off the drugs for a year. The whole rent boy industry is as much drugs as it is sex. I’ve got a few mates who, if they don’t want to earn their money having sex, they’ll take cocaine round to their client, take it with him and charge him for it. After a couple of lines nothing’s working downstairs, so they get paid for doing nothing.

“Now I’m going to go back to uni in Wales and just try and be a normal student.”

So what of the clients? Nobody in Conor’s professional life knows he is gay, let alone that he spends his earnings paying for sex.

The internet provides perfect anonymity. “Behind a computer terminal, it’s quite well hidden,” he said. “It’s between you and that individual.”

Irish-born Conor started using prostitutes in his mid30s. “The thing for me has been the thrill of it all, the control that one could potentially have in the situation.”

Logging on to the networking website Gaydar, Conor clicks a section where escorts advertise. There are currently 350 men listed in Britain, posting pictures ranging from mug-shots to nudes. “It’s just like going to Argos, catalogue-shopping really,” Conor said.

Fine figures

£1,000 weekly earnings for high-class online male prostitute

£30 or 30 per cent of earnings paid by escort to agency for each booking

£70 an hour for sex with a male prostitute working from home

£150 an hour for accompanying clients on museum/restaurant trips

£350 an hour for sex with top-earning prostitute

£450 "overnighter"

£700 all-day session

£3,000 weekly turnover for London escort agency

£5,000 to join client for foreign holiday

£25-45 a month charged by online agencies for escorts to advertise

350 escorts advertising on Gaydar networking website

527 people browsing Gaydar’s escorts yesterday afternoon

Source: Male escort agencies