Peter Mandelson was today facing questions about whether he enjoyed a private holiday in the Caribbean at taxpayers’ expense.

The European Union Trade Commissioner tagged four-days holiday on the front of a working visit to Trinidad and Guiana over the new year, a European Commission spokeswoman has confirmed.

News of the private break emerged after Nigel Farage, a UK Independence Party MEP, asked a parliamentary question about the holiday arrangements of all 25 EU commissioners.

Mr Farage's main target was Jose Manuel Barroso, the Commission President, following rumours that Senor Barroso enjoyed a lavish free holiday last summer with Spiros Latsis, a billionaire shipping tycoon and bank owner.

Although Mr Farage asked the question on February 3, there was no response from the Commission until today, when it confirmed that Senor Barroso's holiday did take place, saying that the two men had been close friends for more than 20 years since their days at university in Geneva.

Senor Barroso's five-day break on the world's biggest yacht has been estimated to be worth 20,000 euros. It lays him open to suspicions that Mr Latsis took the opportunity to lobby the EU President on those aspects of European trade and banking policy which affect his huge business empire.

At the same time, the Commission confirmed that Mr Mandelson added a four-day holiday in the Caribbean on to a working trip for trade talks last January. Officials refused to say exactly where Mr Mandelson stayed and under what terms of hospitality, and who paid for the break.

The Commission was apparently spurred into making the admissions by an article which appeared in the German newspaper Die Welt today. The article claimed that Mr Mandelson had stayed in Jamaica, but the Commission has denied this.

Mr Mandelson was on a working trip to Mali today, and could not be contacted. His spokeswoman, Claude Veron, insisted that he operated within the commission’s rule book. She said: "Mr Mandelson plays by the rules. He ensures those rules are applied very strictly."

She said if any extra costs had been incurred above the proper cost of Mr Mandelson’s Caribbean trip the commissioner would have paid them himself.

One EU official said Mr Mandelson's hosts had "nothing to do with bananas or sugar - nothing to do with the work issues he was engaged in during the trip. The Commissioner is striking a balance between disclosure and the right to privacy."

Mr Farage’s original request for holiday information generated a major Commission debate last week, when it was decided that such matters were private.

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