George Galloway tonight agreed to go to America to give evidence to a Senate committee over allegations that he received lucrative oil allocations from Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime.

The US Senate committee today published a report based on Iraqi Government documents and interviews with Iraqi officials suggesting that Mr Galloway was secretly awarded vouchers for up to 20 million of barrels of oil between 2002 and 2003.

The report also suggested that he may have used his Mariam Appeal charity to conceal payments.

Mr Galloway hit back strongly at those claims today. "The idea that the most scrutinised political figure in Britain was moonlighting as an oil trading billionaire ... it’s patently absurd and I’m very angry at the airtime you are giving this absurd investigation, " he told the BBC television Breakfast programme.

He claimed that he wrote to the committee 11 months ago asking to give evidence but had heard nothing: "They did not ask me a single question, they did not write to me, they have not spoken to me and they know nothing about me."

Tonight the row escalated as a spokesman for the US Senate committee flatly denied Mr Galloway's claim. He said "at no time" did Mr Galloway contact the investigation, by any means "including but not limited to telephone, fax, e-mail, letter, Morse code or carrier pigeon".

Norm Coleman, the committee chairman, said that Mr Galloway would be welcome to give evidence at the committee's next sitting on May 17. That day's hearing has the title: Oil for Influence: How Saddam Used Oil to Reward Politicians and Terrorist Entities Under the UN Oil-for-Food Programme.

"The hearing will begin promptly at 9.30am and there will be a witness chair and microphone available for Mr Galloway's use," said Mr Coleman.

Mr Galloway has accepted the challenge. He told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: "I’ll be there, and I’ll be taking them on in their own lions’ den and I’ll be Daniel and I’ll be triumphant."

The furore erupted after the Senate committee published its latest findings from its inquiry into the discredited United Nations Oil-for-Food programme, under which Iraq was allowed to sell a limited amount of oil under UN auspices, despite international sanctions on the country, in order to buy food and medicines from abroad.

Taha Yassin Ramadan, the former Vice-President of Iraq, told Senate investigators last month that Mr Galloway had been granted the oil allocations because of his supportive opinions about Iraq, and because he wanted to lift sanctions against the country.

The flamboyant former Labour MP was ousted from the party over his outspoken opposition to the invasion of Iraq, and re-elected to Parliament last week for the Respect political party which he founded on an anti-war ticket. He overturned a 10,000 Labour majority to win the seat of Bethnal Green & Bow, where 40 per cent of voters are Muslim

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