Call for inquiry as thousands of government papers 'vanish'.

MINISTERS are facing calls for an investigation following a report that thousands of government papers covering some of the most controversial episodes in 20th-century British history have vanished from the National Archives.

Most of the papers went missing after civil servants removed the files concerned from public display at the archives at Kew, west London, and took them back to Whitehall, according to The Guardian. Records covering the Falklands War, Northern Ireland's Troubles and the infamous Zinoviev letter - when MI6 officers apparently conspired to bring down the first Labour government - are among those said to have been misplaced.

While most of the papers were said to have been found and returned to the archives, "a couple" were still said to be lost.