Two Labour MPs — former cabinet ministers — have been added to a police list which includes ‘anti-racist rock star’ Pete Townshend of those who have accessed child pornography websites.

The names and credit card details of the two Labour MPs are on a list of subscribers to a child porn internet portal sent to Scotland Yard by the US authorities.

The MPs, both former Labour ministers, are the latest public figures to become caught up in Operation Ore, the largest inquiry into child pornography undertaken in the UK.

More than 1,300 people have already been arrested as part of the police investigation, including judges, teachers, doctors, care workers, soldiers and more than 50 police officers.

Townshend, lead guitarist with The Who, has already admitted that he had used his credit card to access a child pornography website. He is to be questioned by detectives and have his computer removed for analysis before police decide whether to press charges.

Townshend topped the bill and supplied the event lighting and equipment for a 1979 Rock Against Racism benefit concert, organised to raise money to pay the legal costs of those arrested in a London area ‘anti-racism demonstration’ which turned violent.

In a statement, Townshend, 57, said he had visited the site purely for the purposes of researching a campaign against child abuse and for a book he is writing.

Mark Stephens, a lawyer who founded the Internet Watch foundation, an independent watchdog, yesterday condemned the rock star’s actions as “wrong-headed and illegal” and described his explanation as “no excuse.”

“It is OK to lobby. There are many high-profile individuals who fight against child pornography,” Mr Stephens said. “But it is wrong-headed, misguided and illegal to look at or download or even to pay to download paedophiliac material and if you do so, you are likely to go to prison. Pete Townshend has admitted a criminal offence and this goes to mitigation and it’s a matter for a court to accept if he was merely doing research or something worse.”

Meanwhile, we await with interest the release of the names of the Labour MPs involved in the child-porn scandal.