Wakeham will say he queried Enron accounts

Lord Wakeham is to admit to the inquiries into the collapse of Enron that he had raised questions about the company's accounting procedures.

The Tory peer, a non- executive director of Enron, will explain to US congressmen investigating the corporate collapse that his queries were blocked by company bosses. Lord Wakeham, a member of Enron's audit committee, has told friends: "We asked lots of questions but we didn't get any answers. We couldn't find out what was going on."

The former cabinet minister has promised to "co-operate actively" with the 14 separate investigations that have been launched in America. Although he visited the US last week for talks with Enron lawyers, he is still unsure which inquiries will summon him to give evidence.

He has temporarily stepped aside as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission because of the scandal.

Trade unions in America have argued Enron's audit committee should have acted as a "whistleblower" for the "off-balance sheet partnerships" which kept millions of dollars of debt off Enron's books. They claim Lord Wakeham's role as a director of the company was incompatible with his consultancy work for Enron Europe.

AFL-CIO, the main union organisation in America, has joined forces with the Trades Union Congress to make a formal complaint over Lord Wakeham's conduct to the Institute of Chartered Accountants, of which he is a member.

The American unions have written to some of the other 18 companies with whom he has links, suggesting his term of office with them should not be renewed. He has also been named in civil lawsuits by former Enron staff, who are seeking to recover hundreds of millions of dollars lost from their pension funds when the company piled up £55bn (£38bn) of debts.

Lord Wakeham may also be questioned by the Commons Treasury Select Committee, which, in the light of the Enron collapse, has launched an inquiry into the financial regulation of public limited companies based in Britain.