A defiant Silvio Berlusconi insisted yesterday that he had never paid a woman for sex, as pressure mounted on the Italian Prime Minister to explain his actions amid lurid allegations that he had entertained escorts and call-girls at his home.

The comments — the first since an inquiry into alleged prostitution was launched — came as an influential Catholic magazine attacked his behaviour as indefensible and accused him of causing a “moral emergency” in his nation.

In an interview with Chi magazine, which he owns, an unrepentant Mr Berlusconi said he had “nothing to apologise for” in his private life. “I have never paid a woman.”

Referring to Patrizia D’Addario, the escort girl who spent a night at Palazzo Grazioli, his Rome residence, he insisted that he was the victim of a set-up. “Someone sent her with a very precise aim ... if I suspected a person of anything of the kind I would keep them a thousand miles away.”

Ms D’Addario denied Mr Berlusconi’s account. She said: “If he has the slightest proof to support his allegation he should hand it to the authorities.”

Mr Berlusconi admitted that he knew Giampaolo Tarantini, who is being investigated for allegedly abetting prostitution. “He was introduced to me as a serious and respected entrepreneur. Now that he is at the centre of an investigation I think that he should be presumed innocent, like any other citizen involved in a judicial case.”

The Prime Minister added that his estrangement from his wife, Veronica Lario, who has asked for a divorce, was “a very painful wound”.

He added: “I don’t know if time can heal it. What is certain is that ours has been a great love story. And true love stories can never be erased.” He said he was “sad but serene”, adding that the accusations against him had pained his children but had “brought us even closer together”.

With new allegations emerging daily, commentators have expressed concern that the scandal is threatening to undermine the Prime Minister’s ability to govern.

His supporters fear a drop in Catholic support and yesterday Italy’s most popular Catholic magazine said that Mr Berlusconi had “passed the limits of decency”.

Father Antonio Sciortino, the magazine’s editor, said the Italian Church “cannot ignore this moral emergency. One cannot pretend that nothing is happening”.

Father Sciortino said Christians were “bewildered by this climate of moral decadence” and that Mr Berlusconi had still not explained the contradictions in his accounts of how he knew Noemi Letizia, the aspiring model whose 18th birthday party he attended in a Naples suburb.

Last weekend Pope Benedict XVI pointedly held up Alcide De Gasperi, Italy’s great postwar Christian Democratic Prime Minister, as an example of “morality in those who govern”.

Meanwhile Avvenire, the Italian Catholic daily, has called on Mr Berlusconi to respond to public opinion urgently. The newspaper said the Prime Minister had to understand he needed to respond not just to his political adversaries but also to his own supporters.

“In the end, everything has a price. And the danger here is that the debt will not be paid by a single person but by the entire country,” it said.

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