Claims that a controversial US company linked to a cult has created the first human clone were met with growing scepticism today.
Chairman of the US president's council on bioethics Mr Leon Kass said that the practice was unethical and should be outlawed in the US.
Although the House of Representatives passed a bill to ban all cloning last year, the bill has not passed through the Senate and has not become law.
In Britain, leading fertility expert Lord Winston and a prominent Labour MP have both voiced strong doubts about reports that Eve, born by Caesarean section on Boxing Day, is a carbon copy of her mother.
It is claimed the baby was created following an embryo experiment by Clonaid, an organisation which is affiliated to the Raelian sect - a religious cult that believes life on Earth was created by extra terrestrials 25,000 years ago.
Mr Glenn Carter, president of the Raelian religion's British branch, said the announcement was "absolutely" true and "the evidence to prove it would be provided in the next few days".
Dr Ian Gibson, Labour chairman of the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee, said: "There is the suspicion that the actual sect that are claiming it, who have got no track record in this field whatsoever, are perhaps using it for a publicity scheme."
"They have got to prove they have the experience and I would like inspectors going in to look at their lab in order to see what they know about carrying out that technology," he told BBC Radio 4's Todayprogramme.
Dr Gibson also called for a Parliamentary review of fertility and cloning technologies.
"These technologies, the questions, the use of the technologies, are raising new moral and ethical morasses for us and we need to debate it seriously over a period," he said.
Lord Winston, writing in the Mirrornewspaper, said today: "I think we should take this with a huge amount of Christmas salt. It's all predictable.
"This strange cult is publicity seeking. Nearly all scientists will regard Clonaid's claim as ludicrous."
He explained only five species had been cloned, with great difficulty, mouse, pig, cattle, sheep and monkey, and cloning humans would require hundreds of embryos.
Mr Carter, speaking on BBC Radio Five Live, said: "With the greatest respect, every pundit on the subject has no right to tell mature human beings what they can do with their reproductive organs or a way to reproduce a child."
Ms Brigitte Boisselier, a French chemist and a bishop of the Raelian sect, told a press conference in Hollywood, Florida, yesterday that 7lb Eve was the first of five "successful" embryos.
The announcement triggered a chorus of international condemnation, led by the US, which is calling for laws banning all human cloning.
Scientists were waiting to carry out tests to confirm the claims by the Raelians, who were unable to produce any DNA evidence to show a genetic match at a press conference in the US.
PA