Adults in Sussex who apply for new passports must attend a 20-minute face-to-face interview at a new office to be opened in Crawley.

The hunt is now on to find offices that can cope with an estimated 7,425 applicants every year, in a move to combat the growing threat of identity fraud.

The centre, which will employ two interviewers, is among 69 that will be set up across the UK later this year to interview about 610,000 people every year wanting to travel abroad for the first time.

The Home Office believes 75 per cent of passport fraud involves first-time adult applicants, with about 1,500 attempted bogus applications made last year alone.

With 90 per cent of applications made by post, the system is wide open to abuse by fraudsters often filling in false forms abroad, ministers say.

Now the identities of all new applicants will be checked against the electoral roll and they will be quizzed in person about their current and previous addresses.

Critics say the new system is the first step on the road to the introduction of identity cards alongside passports, from 2008.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "These are the first visible building blocks of the ID cards system.

"Very soon, millions of us will be required to attend these centres to provide fingerprints and iris scans.

"From the end of 2008, 4.5 million people will have to be interviewed each year as the scheme expands to include all adults renewing their passports."

A Home Office spokesman said: "There are people posting in as many bogus applications as they like, often from abroad which makes it very difficult to arrest them.

"People will be asked to confirm basic information about themselves which someone attempting to steal their identity may not know, such as their previous addresses."

The locations of the offices, announced by the Identity and Passport Service, have been chosen to ensure almost everyone lives within a one-hour drive of one.

Applicants will normally be offered an interview within four days - or the next day if a slot is available at an office further afield. All offices will be open on Saturdays.

Last December the cost of an adult ten-year passport rose by £9 to £51 to fund the new background checks and face-scanning techniques.

The announcement follows a warning earlier this year from a Lib Dem peer that the Passport Office is "totally unprepared" to start interviewing.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno discovered the 600 officials who will carry out the work have not yet been trained to conduct the interviews.