As the company is under investigation, police declined this newspaper permission.

Spanish police were called after Timesonline broke the news of the apparent holiday villas scam last month and the number of complaints began to mount.

A Guardia Civil spokesman said: “So far we have had ten formal complaints. We are investigating all lines of inquiry. We have not made any arrests.”

Anyone concerned should contact Spanish police on 00 34 965 791 085. (In the UK, the Thames Valley Police Economic Crime Unit has assigned a Unique Reference Number (URN 1158 – 30/6/09) for the Morairaway case. Quote the URN if contacting them on 0845 850 5505.)

Q&A: the morairaway.com villa 'swindle'

The fallout from the shutdown of the Spanish villa website has caused widespread questions about what happened

• Britons lose Spanish villa holidays as morairaway.com shuts down

Morairaway.com: the victims

Possibly hundreds of families have lost their summer holidays as the Spanish villa website shuts down and owners disappear

A police source in Javea added: “We have had a lot of British people asking about this fraud. It is happening now perhaps because people were making money out of the building business are not doing so now.”

Paul Quinn Properties S.L. was registered as a real estate company in February, with a capital of €3,006. It may have became another casualty of the recession which is gripping Spain.

Spain’s decade-long building boom has been replaced by a slump in the construction sector. One million homes remain unsold, according to Spain’s major developers.

Earlier Spanish police confirmed they were looking into the activities of Paul Quinn Properties S.L. They said they were also examining possible links to India, from where the website may have been operated.

The investigation is also examining the involvement of Tony Duncan-Smith and another British national, but they would not confirm his name.

Many victims of the alleged fraud said they had repeatedly dealt with Mr Duncan-Smith who claimed he owned some of the ‘phantom’ villas.

The Times visited another address in Javea for Paul Quinn Properties but it proved to be false.

Mention of the company or Mr Quinn drew blank stares from residents of this upmarket resort where former England manager Terry Venables, television cook Nigella Lawson and Hollywood film star Michael Douglas are said to own properties.

After the downturn in the value of the pound and the recession, many legitimate businesses run by British or other foreign expatriates are struggling to survive in Javea and other Costa Blanca resorts.

A scandal like the morairaway.com fraud is likely to make holidaymakers think twice about booking a villa on the Costa Blanca.

Eric Sanderson, who owns two beauty salons in Javea, said: “With the fall in the value of the pound some businesses are finding things hard here. This kind of thing is the last thing we need as a lot of businesses depend on tourism.”

Questions are being asked about Holidaylettings.co.uk and Holiday-rentals.co.uk - both of which carried adverts for the rogue websites - but which both failed to pick up suspicious behaviour before the Spanish site shut down and its owners disappeared.

Holidaylettings.co.uk is to tighten is fraud prevention methods as a result of the morairaway.com episode.

Morairaway.com, its sister-site denia-rentals.com and another site Ipuertobanus.com evaded the company’s security checks, raising concerns among holidaymakers and other internet-based referral sites.

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