MPs ARE among millions of mobile-phone users whose handsets can be used secretly as bugs to eavesdrop on their conversations.

During an investigation by The Times in conjunction with one of the country’s top computer security experts, we identified 46 potentially vulnerable phones in the Central Lobby of the Palace of Westminster that could have been remotely activated and used as listening devices.

Using Bluetooth wireless technology installed in most mobile phones now on the market, we had the ability to access the handsets and have them secretly call us back. Once a connection was made, we could have listened to any conversation near the victims’ phones.

Almost as alarming, we had the capability to download all the text messages stored on the phones, establish which belonged to MPs and then initiate diverts to numbers of our choice so that we could have received all their incoming calls and pretended to be them.

The security flaw is caused by the abuse of the commonly available Bluetooth wireless technology.

This is the industry-standard name for software that allows telephones and computers to communicate via radio waves instead of along cables.

Two weeks ago, The Times revealed that the phone books, diaries and picture stores of some of Britain’s bestselling mobile handsets could be accessed using a laptop computer, some as-yet secret software and a wireless antenna or “dongle”.

The latest revelations go much further and are likely to cause grave concern among handset manufacturers, phone networks and the security industry.

In repeated tests conducted with Adam Laurie, the chairman of A.L. Digital — the computer security company that identified the flaws — we were able to:

Download or erase pictures stored in vulnerable phones.

Mr Laurie, who is known in the computing fraternity as a responsible programming innovator, discovered the first flaws last November and alerted Nokia and Sony Ericsson after writing software that could exploit them.

Both companies insisted that the risk of an attack, known in the industry as “Bluesnarfing”, was slight and unimportant. They say all handsets are safe if the Bluetooth facility is switched off — but many people buy their phones specifically to use Bluetooth with computers and hands-free phone headsets.

However, since The Times highlighted the problem, Mr Laurie and a German programmer, Martin Herfurt of Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, have made more disturbing discoveries.

To test them, we took Mr Laurie into the Central Lobby of the House of Commons. His computer was concealed in a bag and programmed to scan for vulnerable phones but not to attack them. All the “attacks” we conducted during tests were with the consent of handset owners.

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