Bank of Japan officials have been implicated in a widening bribery scandal that has enmeshed the finance ministry, a national daily said at the weeked. Tokyo prosecutors have asked commercial banks to report on benefits accorded two officials at the Bank of Japan, the Mainichi Shimbun quoted banking sources as saying.

The two officials are suspected of each receiving 10 million yen (£58,000) worth of benefits, such as restaurant meals and golf games, over two-to-three years from 1993, the anonymous sources were quoted as saying.

Banks customarily host central bank officials under the pretext of "exchanging views on economic situations and prospects," the report said. "The entertainment is aimed at keeping Bank of Japan (officials) in a good humour in order to secure necessary funds when necessary," a city bank executive told the newspaper.

Another private bank official said: "Some senior officials at the Bank of Japan were arrogant and frequently demanded entertainment."

A spokesman at the Bank of Japan was quoted as saying the central bank was drawing up "new codes of service."

A bribery scandal engulfed the finance ministry in January and has so far claimed the jobs of the finance minister and the ministry's top bureaucrat.

Prosecutors arrested two ministry officials on January 26th on suspicion of taking bribes in the form of entertainment from commercial banks they were inspecting.

The first strike at the powerful ministry in 50 years followed the arrest that month of a former finance ministry official, who later served as an accounting director at state-run Japan Highway Public Corp. Most of Japan's financial institutions employ staff to deal specifically with the finance ministry, often entertaining bureaucrats to extract information about banking policy.

Many banks employ similar staff assigned solely to take care of matters related to the Bank of Japan, the daily said.