Chad and Bangladesh are the most corrupt countries on Earth, according to an annual survey of world corruption released today.

Bribery and backhanders are endemic in more than 70 countries, says Transparency International, which uses data from ten independent institutions, including the World Economic Forum and the UN, to compile its annual rankings.

The report added that 19 of the world's poorest countries that have won debt relief are dogged by serious corruption. It warned that continued corruption was a major obstacle to progress in the developing world, diverting aid for the poorest into the pockets of the few.

"Corruption is a major cause of poverty as well as a barrier to overcoming it," said Peter Eigen, the chairman of the group. "The two scourges feed off each other, locking their populations in a cycle of misery."

Africa remains the most corrupt continent, with 31 out of the 44 nations surveyed scoring less than three out of ten in the organisation's "confidence index".

A score of less than three is "a sign of rampant corruption", according to the report. Transparency International estimates that $148 billion is lost to corruption in Africa every year.

The study singled out Chad, which scored 1.7 out of 10, warning that "the country is marked by political instability, human rights abuses and weak press freedom".

"Corruption isn’t a natural disaster: it is the cold, calculated theft of opportunity from the men, women and children who are least able to protect themselves," said David Nussbaum, chief executive of Transparency International.

At the top end of the scale, Iceland was deemed to be the least corrupt country on the planet, closely followed by Finland, New Zealand and Denmark. Britain came in eleventh, ahead of America in seventeenth place, while France, despite "noteworthy improvement", was placed at eighteenth.

The bottom end of the list is dominated by some of the world's poorest and most autocratic countries, including Turkmenistan, Myanmar and Haiti.

But today's report warned that prosperity was no guarantee against rising corruption, and criticised Canada and Ireland, where "there has been a marked increase in the perception of corruption over the past ten years".

"The fight against corruption does not fall solely on lower-income countries," said the report. "Wealthier countries, apart from facing numerous corruption cases within their own borders, must share the burden by ensuring that their companies are not involved in corrupt practices abroad."

Corruption in Europe centred in the Balkans, where Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and Albania all had scores of three or under, sharing their rankings with Mongolia, Mozambique and Sierra Leone respectively.

Of the G8 nations, Russia had by far the worst corruption ranking, down in 118th place out of 159 and below Afghanistan, Eritrea and Zimbabwe.

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