Stuart Levey, the US Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, was in Malta last week for talks with government officials.

His role is to track and disrupt the financial networks of terrorists and weapons traffickers and to improve U.S. and international efforts to protect the financial system from illicit activity, US Treasury officials said.

This was the first time that Mr Levey had visited Malta.

He met officials from the foreign and finance ministries to describe the U.S. government's efforts to combat illicit finance and to protect the financial system, especially from abuse by Iranian entities that support weapons proliferation or terrorism.

Mr Levey told a US Senate committee earlier this month that over the past year and a half, he and other senior Treasury officials had met finance ministry and central bank counterparts from around the world to discuss the importance of ensuring that the international financial system was not tainted by Iran's abuse. "We have also met with scores of banks to share this information and to discuss the risks of doing business with Iran".