Two more prisoners have been accused of rape. One of the prisoners being investigated by police is alleged to have committed rape since July last year, when Mr Clarke was informed of the fiasco. The other allegation of rape was dropped owing to lack of evidence, but remains on file.

In a highly damaging development, it has emerged that one of the five reoffenders had served a second jail term and been released again on licence.

Seventy two violent former prisoners remained at large last night, of whom at least ten are murderers, rapists or paedophiles. Only six foreign nationals had been found by police as Mr Clarke issued his statement, shortly before 6pm. One murderer was back in prison after breaking the terms of his release licence.

Mr Clarke remains at the mercy of events, as police checks for re-offending have been carried out only on the 79 most serious offenders out of the 1,023 released. In 63 of the 72 cases where deportation had been considered, officials have decided that the offenders should be forced to leave the country.

Mr Clarke said that a search of the records had revealed no case where offenders had been reconvicted of the most serious offences such as murder, manslaughter, rape or child sex crimes. There was also a “small number of further cases” where investigations had to be completed.

The Home Secretary said that, of the 79 serious offenders, 13 had committed “the most serious offences” — murder, manslaughter, rape and child sexual offences.

The 63 already facing deportation included all of these 13, he said. Six offenders were in custody pending deportation, with further arrests expected “later today and over the weekend”.

His figures on the 13 most serious offenders did not tally with the list published on Tuesday. At that time there were said to be three murderers, nine rapists, two people convicted of manslaughter and five sex offences involving children, making a total of 19.

The Home Office said it had addresses for the 79 most serious offenders, but that does not necessarily mean the foreign nationals will be there. It was unable to say whether it knew the whereabouts of the nine rapists.

Mr Clarke made clear he would not resign and appeared to blame the problems on his predecessor, David Blunkett, and senior officials who have now left the Department. “The genuine shortcomings which have been revealed in dealing with foreign national prisoners will be repaired and we will learn the lessons to make whatever further changes are needed.”

David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said that the fiasco represented a major failure on Mr Clarke’s part, and that none of the crimes would have happened had Mr Clarke and the Government been doing their job of protecting the public properly. “What’s clear about this is that it should have been done 10 months ago at the very latest. He only informed the police of what they had to do three days ago and I am afraid that is a major failure in his duty of protecting the public.

Nick Clegg, for the Liberal Democrats, said the statement was “cold comfort” to the victims of the five crimes which the Home Office had not even designed to describe in detail.

Times Recommends

• Oh no, Mr Darling: you have failed
• BBC survives dogfight over Kennel Club expose
• Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone