A reality TV show contestant says that he posed as the boyfriend of Noemi Letizia, the aspiring model from Naples, after Silvio Berlusconi attended her 18th birthday party in April.

Domenico Cozzolino, 21, said that his supposed relationship with Ms Letizia had been organised, but he did not say by whom.

Mr Berlusconi’s unexplained presence at the party in Naples, at which he gave Ms Letizia a €6,000 (£5,200) gold-and-diamond pendant, led to his wife, Veronica Lario, demanding a divorce. She said that she could “not stay with a man who frequents minors”.

It later emerged that when she was 17, Ms Letizia attended dinners given by Mr Berlusconi in Rome and Milan and had been to his Sardinian villa for a new year party.

The focus then moved to Mr Berlusconi’s lavish parties in Sardinia, at which those invited allegedly included several escort girls.

Mr Cozzolino told the woman’s magazine Diva e Donna that Ms Letizia had asked him to pose as her boyfriend “three or four days” after her 18th birthday party. Gino Flaminio, her previous boyfriend, said that they broke up when she came back from Sardinia.

Mr Cozzolino said: “I believe someone put her up to it. The truth is it was all organised.” A spokesman for the Prime Minister declined to comment when asked if the “someone” was Mr Berlusconi.

Mr Cozzolino said that he had not heard from Ms Letizia since June 7, the final day of the European and local elections. “They wanted to send me away because I know too much,” Mr Cozzolino told the magazine. He said that even now he had “not told the whole truth, just part of it”.

Italian reports said that photographs showing Mr Cozzolino and Ms Letizia kissing on the seafront in Naples that were published in Chi magazine — which Mr Berlusconi owns — had been staged, as had photographs of them in Riccione.

Diva e Donna published an interview with Cristina Tatenko, a 25-year-old Russian model who said that she was Mr Cozzolino’s girlfriend. She said Mr Cozzolino assured her that he had only a work relationship with Ms Letizia.

Gianfranco Fini, the Speaker of the Lower House and co-leader with the Prime Minister of the People of Liberty party, who has said little in Mr Berlusconi’s defence over the past two months, said that “private matters are private” and that Italians judged prime ministers by their actions.

Nichi Vendola, the centre-left head of the Apulia region, said that he had suspended 15 officials, They were named in an inquiry by Bari prosecutors into corruption over equipment supplied to the regional health service by Giampaolo Tarantini, the Bari businessman under investigation for allegedly abetting prostitution by paying women to attend Mr Berlusconi’s parties.

Mr Vendola said that the officials concerned were not involved in the sex and drugs inquiry. He accused RAI, the state broadcasting company, of dishonest journalism for focusing on the corruption allegations against the centre-left authorities while ignoring the scandals involving Mr Berlusconi, who allegedly spent the night of the US election in November with Patrizia D’Addario, an escort girl from Bari said to have been supplied by Mr Tarantini.

Mr Berlusconi said that this was entrapment. Emilio Marzano, the chief prosecutor in Bari, played down reports that Mr Berlusconi would be summoned as a witness in the inquiry.

Times Recommends

• Google to digitise Iraqi artefacts
• Renault angers parents by naming new car Zoé
• Analysis: most lawless part of Philippines