Angelina Jolie may take legal action against the head of a Cambodian aid group she alleges misused her donations, according to her political adviser.

Mounh Sarath, the director of Cambodian Vision in Development, has claimed the Hollywood star reneged on an agreement by stopping funds for his group.

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But Jolie adviser Trevor Neilson denied the actress had broken any agreement with Mounh Sarath.

Instead she had terminated the contract with his group and set up an independent Cambodian organisation to administer a conservation project for remote north-western areas of the country, the director of the new group explained yesterday.

"We are considering filing a lawsuit to recover the hundreds of thousands of dollars that is missing and which he was responsible for," Mr Neilson said of Mounh Sarath. He did not elaborate or indicate when the claim would be filed.

"We have specific evidence (of) him having taken the money, and we are considering whether to file a lawsuit or press charges against him in Cambodia," Mr Neilson said.

Mounh Sarath denied the allegations and said he was "happily" ready to confront any legal action. "I will fight any lawsuit to find out the truth and to see if they have any documented proof of the money stolen," he said.

The actress's new conservation group, the Maddox Jolie Project, is named after her five-year-old son Maddox, who she adopted from Cambodia in 2002.

Jolie, 31, has promised up to 1.3 million dollars (£682,460) over five years for the forest conservation programme, which was approved by the Cambodia government in 2003.