Embarrassed Polish government officials have distanced themselves from their children's rights ombudsman after she accused the Teletubbies of being gay.

Parliamentary speaker Ludvig Dorn said the statements by Poland's government-appointed children's rights ombudsman Ewa Sowinska had been repeated around the world.

Polish child psychologists also ridiculed claims that the children's programme might encourage the young to become gay.

Malgorzata Borzyminska, child psychologist and editor of Polish magazine Parents, said: "The programme is addressed to children aged from a year to three years of age and children only begin to differentiate between the sexes in the third year of their lives."

But Sowinska has refused to back down, and confirmed she had now established a committee of experts to examine her belief that the award-wining TV programme was promoting homosexuality among Polish babies.