Video | Berlusconi under pressure to resign after teen dancer scandal

The 74-year-old Prime Minister is alleged to have given the girl Euro 7,000 as a gift and reportedly called police to free her after she had been detained for theft.

Politicians have demanded that Berlusconi resign and he has been lambasted by the Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana for lacking "self-control".

The saga of the dancer - named in the Italian media as Karima Keyek - has exploded into the latest scandal over the Italian prime minister's private life.

Newspapers have been awash with details of parties which the teenager - known on stage as Ruby Rubacuori -allegedly attended at the media tycoon's residence.

She has been quoted calling them "bunga-bunga" parties - an apparent reference to a lewd joke that is taken to refer to some form of sexual activity.

Berlusconi says he helped Karima when she was in trouble with police, but denies interfering with the justice system.

She denies sleeping with the prime minister and told La Repubblica, that Silvio Berlusconi "behaved like a father".

She went on to tell Oggi magazine: "Silvio took me upstairs. He wanted to help me. He told me that he wouldn't ask anything in return.

"He gave me an envelope with Euro 7,000 in it and I told him I dreamed of gaining Italian citizenship and becoming a policewoman."

Berlusconi has weathered other scandals tied to parties with escorts and another teenage girl over the past year.

His approval ratings have been falling steadily to below 40% thanks to an austerity package, government infighting and corruption scandals.

But polls show his government remains comfortably ahead of the weak leftist opposition.

The widely respected newspaper Corriere della Sera on Saturday published details of a phone conversation it said Berlusconi had with a Milan police chief.

According to Corriere, he urged the officer not to send Karima to a shelter after she had been detained for theft in May.

The PM is quoted as saying: "We know this girl, but most of all I want to explain to you that she has been identified to us as a relative of Egyptian President (Hosni) Mubarak."

Berlusconi's allies dismissed the allegations of interference.

Labour minister Maurizio Sacconi suggested an "organised ferocity" lay behind the number of probes linked to the premier, in a bid to force him out of power.

Italy's left-wing opposition, which has stepped up its attacks over the scandal, said the latest reports showed it was time for Berlusconi to step down.

"The news coming out of Milan tell us something clear: Berlusconi cannot stay another minute in a public role that he has indecently betrayed," Pierluigi Bersani, the head of the leftist Democratic Party, said in a statement.