Hundreds held over fake documents

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The applicants were stopped by border officials as they applied for visas before boarding planes to Britain.

Cases included two women from the Philippines who wanted visas to join their British "husbands" in the UK, only for officials to discover they were already married to Filipino men.

One traveller tried to use a stolen Colombian passport, one of a batch of 495 taken in an armed robbery in 2004, and 20 Indian nationals were arrested for trying to use false tax returns in support of their visa applications.

Three Nigerian men were also arrested as a slew of forged passports from the African country were detected.

Police Minister Vernon Coaker said: "Stopping these fraudulent attempts to enter Britain is a crucial part of our fight to protect our borders from those intent on abusing the system.

"That's why anyone requiring a visa - three quarters of the world's population - is fingerprinted before they travel and one in five visa applications were refused so far this year.

"These 500 arrests are just the tip of the iceberg - once referred to police, as in the case of the Colombian armed robbery, these arrests can lead investigators to a much larger network of criminals."

The UK Border Agency said it stopped nearly 210,000 people boarding planes to the UK without proper documents from 2003 to 2007.

All their fingerprints remain on the agency's website.