Inquiry into the 'fertility tourists'

Women are becoming "fertility tourists" and paying tens of thousands of pounds to travel abroad in their desperate search to find an egg donor.

They are taking advantage of package deals to Spain, Crete or Romania where there are more women willing to donate their eggs.

Britain's fertility governing body, the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA), is so worried it is launching an investigation. Under current rules women cannot be paid for donating eggs, leading to lengthy treatment delays.

A string of clinics now offer the chance to use foreign donors. But doctors warn that women cannot be sure the checks on the donor's health and screening programmes are as stringent overseas. Some say they are risking their health and that of their child.

The Evening Standard has found waiting lists at London clinics can range from six months to eight years, with a premium paid for those offering more rapid treatment.

The phenomenon is documented in a Channel 4 programme - 30 Minutes: Desperate For A Baby - where gynaecologist Paul Rainsbury says he sends two or three couples to Spain every month despite the cost of between ?9,000 and ?10,000.

Mr Rainsbury, who operates out of the Bupa Roding Hospital, in Ilford, said: "I carry out all the work here to prepare the womb for pregnancy and then normally the husband flies to Spain where a sperm sample is frozen. Then the associate clinic in Spain starts looking for a donor match.

"When that donor has gone through the stimulation process, has had eggs harvested and fertilised with the defrosted sperm, then the recipient f lies out and has the embryo implanted."

He added that most clients were young women whose ovaries had stopped producing eggs for whatever reason and older women who had undergone recurrent failed IVF cycles.

Professor Gedis Grundzinskas, of The Bridge Centre, in Woolwich, has sent nine women to Crete and Romania this year.

They have paid between ?6,500 and ?7,500 each, and treatment usually takes place within six months.

He says the clinics he uses all operate within HFEA safety guidelines - which include screening donors for sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and limiting the number of implanted embryos to stop multiple pregnancies.

Professor Grundzinskas said: "Women are forced to go abroad because of the shortages here. The longest waits for eggs are in London. We should look at the issue of paying women again."