POLICE searching for the missing weapons expert at the centre of a row over the Government's Iraq weapons dossier today found a body.

Thames Valley Police said the unidentified male body was discovered five miles from the home of Dr David Kelly at Harrowdown Hill in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

Dr Kelly, who was named by the Ministry of Defence as the possible source of a BBC report claiming Downing Street "sexed up" a dossier on weapons of mass destruction, was reported missing by family at 11.45pm last night.

Dr Kelly, 59, had not been seen since leaving his home in Abingdon at about 3pm yesterday after telling his wife he was going for a walk.

On Tuesday he had faced a grilling by MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee about what he told BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, who filed the report containing the allegations against Number Ten.

The Government claimed Dr Kelly had come forward voluntarily to admit he had spoken to the reporter.

But when he gave evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee investigating the dossier some MPs suggested he had been set up as a fall guy by the Government.

Ryedale MP John Greenway said that - if the body was confirmed as that of Dr Kelly - it would be an "absolute tragedy".

He added: "I equally think this reflects very badly on the way the Government has handled this whole issue.

"The question people will want answering now is how did this man come to be put under such incredible pressure?

"It has always been my view that Ministers should be responsible for what the officials in their departments do. They should be the ones answerable to Parliament and select committees.

"The ministers in the Ministry of Defence now have some serious explaining to do."

Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle, a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq, said that Dr Kelly's disappearance and the discovery of a body added weight to demands for an independent judicial inquiry into the question of how the Government justified its decision to take military action.

He said: "We don't know exactly what Dr Kelly's own frame of mind was in the build-up to his appearance before the Select Committee. We don't know what his immediate reaction was to the cross-examination.

"We owe it to Parliament and to the people, and not least to the family of Dr Kelly, to get to the bottom of this in a way which is completely untarnished."

Police appealed today for help in tracing the scientist, of Faringdon Road, Southmoor, Abingdon.

His disappearance and failure to make contact with anyone was described by his family as "out of character".

The body was discovered at about 9.20am - less than an hour after the public appeal was made.

Updated: 14:36 Friday, July 18, 2003