Tory MPs have blamed the Government's "soft touch" approach to asylum seekers for the West Sussex child sex trafficking scandal.

Tim Loughton, MP for Shoreham and East Worthing, secured a Commons debate on the reasons why girls who arrive in West Sussex as asylum seekers are ending up in Italy as sex slaves.

Since 1995, 40 young women from Nigeria and Sierra Leone are feared to have been sold into prostitution after vanishing from the care of West Sussex social services.

Mr Loughton said the girls were picked up by criminals who forced them to apply for asylum in Britain.

The girls fly into Gatwick Airport and go into the care of social services in West Sussex. But once they have been placed in care, the criminals collect them.

Having secured status as legitimate asylum seekers, the girls can then be flown to Italy where they are sold to brothel owners.

The girls are told they have huge debts and have to work them off as prostitutes if they wish to be freed.

Mr Loughton said: "Why are these girls not being taken directly to their end destination in Italy?

"It is apparent that the Italians made their own asylum laws somewhat tougher some years ago and the UK is seen as the soft touch in Europe."

Social services minister John Hutton said the Government was looking at ways of making the "loathsome trade" illegal.

There were signs the hard work of West Sussex social services and police to clamp down on the trade was paying off, with not a single child going missing so far this year.

Last year the total was 21.