"Comfort letters" sent to fugitives during the Northern Ireland peace process may have been unlawful, according to a parliamentary inquiry.

The report urges the British government to introduce new legislation if necessary, to ensure the "on-the-run" letters have no legal effect.

During the peace process, the British Labour Government, led by Tony Blair, sent out around 200 so-called comfort letters to republicans, assuring them they were not being pursued by UK authorities.

Tony Blair has said the peace process would have collapsed without them.

However, an investigation was launched by MPs when the prosecution of a man for the murder of four soldiers in a bombing in Hyde Park in 1982 was halted after he received one of the letters in error.

But the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee felt this investigation should have been wider in remit and conducted in public - so it set up its own inquiry.

It has found that the letters were questionably unlawful and distorted justice - sharply contradicting the findings of the British government inquiry last year.