A legal loophole which allows human traffickers to smuggle young African girls through West Sussex to become prostitutes in Italy must be closed, an MP demanded today.

Tory Tim Loughton (E Worthing and Shoreham) said police were powerless to stop the "grotesque and unacceptable" modern slave trade because it was not a criminal offence.

Girls as young as 12 are taken from Nigeria and flown in to Gatwick Airport, where they are told to claim asylum.

In fear for their lives after being subjected to voodoo rituals, they are then abducted from care homes and foster families and taken abroad to "work".

Run by "international pimps" they are forced into prostitution, often in Turin, until they can pay off their "debt" to the traffickers, he said.

Britain had been chosen as the transit point because it was seen as a "soft touch" for asylum seekers compared with other EU states, Mr Loughton suggested during a debate in Westminster Hall.

Since 1994, up to 64 girls had disappeared from care in West Sussex because the county contains Gatwick Airport.

Apart from the human cost, the trade has added £1 million to the county's already over-stretched social services department.

Mr Loughton accused the Home Office of washing its hands of the matter and leaving it all to West Sussex.

The police had carried out a huge operation to expose the trade but had then found themselves powerless to do anything, he said.

Now the trafficking appeared to have stopped in Sussex, it was time action was taken nationally to stamp it out and prevent it spreading to other areas.

Aid to Nigeria should also be made conditional on its government helping stop the trade at source.