22 exam papers have been stolen

The extent of the stolen exams chaos was revealed today after it was admitted more than 20 question papers had gone missing from a school.

But now it has been discovered that a total of 22 GCSE, A-level and AS papers - from all three examination boards - have been stolen from a safe at Harrow Park Tutorial College.

Despite the security breach, all but three of the exams being sat by students this week remained unchanged.

Claire Ellis, of the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) board, said that the authorities were trying to establish the papers' circulation and would be employing "the closest possible scrutiny to look for evidence of cheating".

Stevie Pattison-Dick, of Edexcel, confirmed that "a number of students are under investigation" and may face criminal charges. Some papers had been quarantined and cheats would lose places at university.

Last week Harrow Park told police that papers had been stolen from a secure unit in the school. It emerged that five Alevel exams set by Edexcel had gone missing.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority have now admitted that, besides Edexcel papers in biology, chemistry, maths and statistics, the stolen tests included questions from AQA in economics, accounting and business studies, and also Oxford, Cambridge and RSA papers in science, English, physics and economics.

Most are A-levels, but the theft involved an OCR GCSE science double award and an AQA ASlevel paper in economics.

A spokeswoman for Harrow Park said: "There was an incident at the college, and it was reported immediately to police.

"The staff and students are very angry that they should have to sit examinations knowing that somebody else has cheated." No one at the college, students or staff, had been interviewed over the theft, she added.