More than 4,500 viewers have complained about alleged racist bullying in the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother, where a Bollywood actress has been teased for her accent and described as "a dog".

In the latest blow to the Channel 4 series, from which three 'celebrities' have already escaped, the media regular Ofcom has been hit by a record flood of 3,500 complaints from viewers with Channel 4 taking a further 1,000 emails and calls.

There was even a question tabled in the House of Commons about the treatment of the Indian actress Shilpa Shetty.

The problem started when one of the celebrities, Jade Goody’s mother Jackiey, seemed incapable of pronouncing Shetty's first name properly, no matter how many times she was corrected - and took to calling her "the Indian".

Over the weekend, Danielle Lloyd, a former beauty queen and Jo O’Meara, of S Club 7 fame, began making fun of Shetty's accent. When the actress attempted to console Danielle when Carole Malone, the tabloid journalist, was evicted on Friday, the bitching began.

"She makes me feel sick," Jade began. "She makes my skin crawl."

Danielle responded with: "She's a dog."

On the programme last night, the taunts continued as the same three women mocked Shetty's attempts to roast a turkey and refused to eat it.

Jo O’Meara began doing impressions of Shetty's accent and complained that the actress had touched housemates’ food with her hands.

"I don’t trust that chicken. I want to eat it but I’m scared," she complained, claiming it was undercooked and too spicy.

"They eat with their hands in India, don’t they - or is that China?" asked Danielle, adding, "You don’t know where her hands have been."

The Indian media also noticed an exchange between Jade Goody's boyfriend Jack Tweedy and Shetty. In the incident, featured in the Celebrity Big Brother highlights, Tweedy's comment was bleeped out - although there were reports that he had called her a "f***ing Paki". A Channel 4 spokeswoman denied that he used that phrase.

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