England's Chief Medical Officer today criticised supermodels and actresses who glamorise cigarettes as he renewed his call for a public ban on smoking.

Sir Liam Donaldson said that beautiful female celebrities who smoke, like the model Kate Moss and Charlize Theron, the Oscar-winning actress, prolong the deception that smoking is sexy and alluring.

In his annual report on the state of public health, Sir Liam called for a new campaign to warn young women, one of the few social groups in which rates of smoking are rising, that the habit ruins the skin and makes people look old.

Fewer young women would smoke if they knew that, as well as risking their health, they would develop more wrinkles and crow's feet at a younger age, lines around their mouth, and their skin would go dry and sallow grey, said Sir Liam.

Yet little had changed since the 1960s, when cigarettes were marketed as something used by glamorous and successful people.

"Those in their teens and early twenties tend to be image-conscious and, therefore, by highlighting the harmful effects of smoking on skin I hope to encourage more young people to give up," he said.

"The use of smoking in the modelling, fashion and film industries is totally at odds with one of its principal aims, to promote glamour and good looks.

"The medical and scientific facts tell a different story - beauty is only skin deep, and the smoke and chemicals in cigarette smoke can damage the architecture of the skin for good."

The world of cinema and glossy magazines is full of iconic female stars who smoke both on and off camera, creating images admired by millions of young women.

Moss has in the past admitted to smoking 80 cigarettes a day, and in 2002 was photographed smoking while four months pregnant.

Last year tabloid newspapers printed pictures of her after a night out, lying on her back with three cigarettes in her mouth at the same time.

Naomi Campbell once told an interviewer: "I never diet. I smoke." Scarlett Johansson, the 19-year-old Hollywood actress, claims that the habit stops her from nibbling between meals.

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