Two British MPs have denied any wrongdoing after they were filmed offering a fictitious Hong Kong company access to politicians in return for payment.
Filmed with a hidden camera by Channel 4 television and the Daily Telegraph newspaper, the two serving members of parliament appeared to quote sums for advising the fake public relations firm.
Asked about the cost of his services, Jack Straw, who was foreign minister in the last Labour government, said: "Normally, if I'm doing a speech or something, it's STG5000 ($A9,818) a day."
Channel 4 said Straw told the undercover journalists that he had operated "under the radar" to use his influence to change European Union rules on behalf of a commodity firm which paid him STG60,000 ($A117,820) pounds a year.
It said he "claimed to have used 'charm and menace' to convince the Ukrainian prime minister to change laws on behalf of the same firm."
Straw, 68, was suspended from the Labour party on Monday at his own request. He said his discussion with the fictitious company only related to his plans for after he leaves parliament.
"I'm mortified about what happened," Straw said. "This is a sophisticated deception." He denied breaching the rules for conduct of serving members of parliament.
The second politician, Malcolm Rifkind, also rejected the "sordid, unfounded allegations" against him.
"I will fight them all the way," Rifkind told the BBC.
Rifkind, 68, boasted to the undercover reporters that he could arrange "useful access" to British ambassadors across the globe, adding that his standard rate was "somewhere in the region of STG5000 to STG8000" per half-day.
He claimed he was "self-employed" and had to "earn my income," despite receiving an annual salary of STG67,000 ($A131,566) for his parliamentary duties.
The Conservative Party said a disciplinary committee would investigate the alleged misconduct by Rifkind, who served as foreign secretary and in other ministerial posts in conservative governments of the 1980s and 1990s.
It suspended Rifkind from his post as a party whip, a senior post to rally parliamentary members before key debates and votes.
Sir Alastair Graham, former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said he was "shocked and surprised" that two of Britain's most experienced politicians appeared to have said they were willing to help the fictitious company.
The video footage was "not a good advert for British democracy in the run-up to the general election (in May)," Graham told the BBC.
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