The government has denied reports that a boatload of arms travelled through the island from Israel to Muammar Gaddafi’s stronghold of Tripoli.

“Transport Malta confirms that no cargo vessels have arrived from Ashdod, Israel in the last days,” a spokesman for the Office of the Prime Minister said.

The reports were started by Saudi Arabian-owned news network Al Arabiya and picked up in a local newspaper (not The Times).

The network quoted the Libyan interim council saying three Israeli boats left the port of Ashdod toward Malta to transfer a cargo of arms to a ship belonging to Col Gaddafi.

“If true, this would mark the first time the Israelis have openly engaged with parties in any of the five countries currently in crisis in the Arab world: Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Bahrain,” the network wrote.

It added: “The foreign section of the council added that the ship, which left Tripoli to allegedly bring food products from Malta, would unload the Israeli arms in Algeria before transferring them to Libya across the border.”

Although anti-Gaddafi Libyans in Malta were worried about the news and believed it, Maltese people with close ties to Libya said it was highly unlikely, particularly because of the Israeli element.