The shocking extent of the plundering of ocean war graves emerged last night.

A guide to the "best" wreck dives in British waters, detailing treasures that can be found and the artefacts already removed, is circulating on the Internet.

Meanwhile there are ghoulish accounts from divers who have seen bodily remains during their exploration of the remains of ships sunk in World War Two.

The widespread looting has divided the diving community, most of whom are incensed by the actions of a minority of their colleagues, but the prospect of fascinating - and valuable - war relics is providing irresistible to others.

An Internet diving magazine lists the "100 Best Wreck Sites" to dive - more than half of which were sunk in the two world wars with the loss of at least 2,000 lives.

Divers are invited to take the "Wreck Tour" of what remains on the sea bed.

The best wreck to view is said to be the P&O express mail liner the Salsette, torpedoed in Lyme Bay, off Weymouth, in July, 1917, with the loss of 15 crew.

It describes the diving as "fantastic" and says: "Complete ship lying on port side. Splendid finds amid luxury fittings of interior."

It goes on to say: "We won't count the portholes raised - there were more than 300 on each side of the 5,842-ton luxury liner, each with its own brass drip tray.

"The steering wheel has been raised - solid brass, of course - and hundreds of pieces of P&O crockery have been found by divers.

"Most prized by some will be the gold watch chains and fob watches found by divers dribbling the silt through their fingers on the floors of the cabins."

Elsewhere on the Internet there is evidence that American ex-servicemen are outraged at the grave-robbing from ships and landing craft that sank off the Normandy coast of France during D-Day.

One salvage operator, Jacques Lemonchois, licensed by the French Government, has even opened his own private museum in the area with all the artefacts lifted from the seabed, including weapons, helmets, full whisky flasks and soldiers' letters home that were never sent.

And on another Internet site a British diver tells of an expedition to the wreck of the Cap Arcona, a passenger liner used by the Germans to evacuate 4,750 concentration camp prisoners in 1945. A request by the captain to paint the ship with red crosses to mark it out as a hospital ship was refused by the SS and the liner was sunk by British aircraft off Hamburg.

The diver reports: "There was no solid mass of wreckage to explore, just a peppering of small items. We saw a jackboot, shoes, block and tackle and a crushed tin box.

"Later, as our eyes become more accustomed to the gloom, we were able to make out a thigh bone here, a pelvis there. I saw white teeth, the enamel gleaming as it must have done when they were last used more than 50 years ago."

v The looting of these sites has sickened most of the 100,000 amateur and professional divers operating around Britain's coasts.

v Stuart Bryan, of Dursley, Gloucestershire, the archaeology co-ordinator for the Sub Aqua Association (SAA), which has 8,000 members, deprecated the language used in the 100 Best Wreck Sites.

He said: "It is written by a man who earns his living by writing books, and if he can excite them by talking about treasure and gold then he will.

"A lot of wrecks have been plundered in the past, but people are realising that this is wrong. Particularly over the last five years attitudes have changed.

"We are trying to educate and use peer pressure. It is a matter of a change of culture. We want the freedom to visit and pay respect because people are interested in the historical wrecks."

The Professional Association of Diving Instructors, whose British base is in Bristol, has teamed up with the SAA and the British Sub Aqua Club to produce a Respect Our Wrecks code of conduct for divers.

Education manager Suzanne Pleydell said: "It is certainly a hot topic, a controversial issue that has gained momentum over the past few years.

"We have an educational campaign to make our divers aware of the law. Wreck-diving is a very popular activity in the UK but we remind people that a wreck is very often someone's personal tragedy, whether it is a wartime wreck or not.

"We are very sympathetic to the survivors' associations, but we are also concerned with people's freedom to dive."

Nigel Eaton, editor of Diver magazine, which runs the website featuring the 100 Best Wreck Sites, said: "Those who do tamper with wrecks are letting everyone else down. We say don't tamper with wrecks at all."

Diver Nick Chipchase yesterday defended the rights of amateur divers to visit and identify sea war graves.

The Western Daily Press campaign calls for international action to halt the plundering of the graves of Naval war heroes for memorabilia.

But Mr Chipchase, aged 53, from Taunton argues that an international 100-year exclusion zone around ocean war graves is "neither practical nor necessary." He said most divers were responsible people who played a valuable role in identifying wrecks and notifying families desperate to know the final resting places of their lost loved ones.

In the early 1990s Mr Chipchase identified wreckage from two US landing ships in Lyme Bay, from an incident in which 600 Americans lost their lives.

"I have been in contact with the survivors and they were very happy that these wrecks had been located in the 50th anniversary year," he said. "Wreaths were laid on the site. This would not have been possible but for amateur divers risking their own lives in difficult conditions."

However, the diving community is split on the issue. Taunton chaplain Reverend Andrew Phillips, an experienced diver, says that while many divers adhere to a code of conduct not to enter war graves or remove items, he has seen much evidence that others do not.

Naval veteran Norman Perriman has spoken of his anger at "utterly disgraceful" divers who pillage the sunken graves of his former comrades. And supporting the Western Daily Press Let Them Rest in Peace campaign, he delivered a stark message to the divers: "Hands off."

Serving on board several ships in the East Indies and with the Pacific Fleets, Mr Perriman experienced at first hand the horrors of World War Two. He remembers the thousands who made the ultimate sacrifice and is furious that their last resting places have become playgrounds for callous divers.

As Honorary Secretary of the Weston-Super-Mare branch of the Royal Naval Association, Mr Perriman has written a heartfelt and moving letter about his former colleagues.

It has been sent to Liberal Democrat Weston-Super-Mare MP Brian Cotter who has tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament on the plunder of Naval war graves. The letter reads: "We are asking you as our MP for Weston-Super-Mare to apply pressure for an international, 100-year, moratorium on diving at the site of ocean war graves.

"Myself and most of our members have served with the East Indies or British Pacific Fleets during the Second World War. We are the lucky ones who have made it home, but have left hundreds of our shipmates sleeping in their watery graves. "We are very angry with what is now happening with divers disturbing their resting place which we call sacred.

"Ringing in our ears are the words that we well know, respect, and say often as they would want us to say: "When you go home, tell them of us, and say, for your tomorrow - we gave our today."

Mr Perriman, who lives in Locking, Weston-Super-Mare, joined the Fleet Air Arm in 1941 and was on operations with 888 Naval Air Squadron as an Air Mechanic until 1946. He vividly remembers the adrenalin rush mixed with fear that he felt when in the heat of battle. But his abiding recollection is of the comradeship among the crew - a loyalty and friendship that has been insulted by the bounty-hunting of divers.

Mr Perriman said: "The Press campaign is excellent. "We regard the sunken ships as sacred. It's like any person from the Army or Airforce who is buried in a marked grave - they are never desecrated.

"We were certain at the time that they were off limits. To dive and pillage them is utterly disgraceful."

He said governments across the world needed to co-operate to make sure the scavenging of Naval graves was stopped.

A rainbow alliance of MPs is backing the Western Daily Press campaign to stop divers plundering the ocean graves of our war heroes.

The Let Them Rest In Peace campaign is attracting widespread support at Parliament from MPs of all parties right across the region.

MPs have tabled a Commons Early Day Motion (EDM) and Parliamentary Questions to Ministers, and have pledged to highlight in the House the campaign to stop the plundering of Naval war graves. Hundreds of Press readers have sent their MP the coupon printed in the newspaper urging them to apply pressure for an international 100-year moratorium on diving at the site of ocean war graves. The EDM was tabled late on Wednesday evening by Liberal Democrat MPs David Heath (Somerton & Frome) and Brian Cotter (Weston-Super-Mare) and Labour Bristol North West MP Doug Naysmith.

Mr Cotter said: "It is an absolute disgrace that unscrupulous divers are raiding these sites for their own personal gain or enjoyment. "We would be appalled if war graves on land were interfered with in this way and we should be no more tolerant of these activities under the sea.

"The Western Daily Press has done a tremendous job in highlighting this issue in the West. The campaign initiated by the Press has been strongly backed by people throughout our region and I am confident that a great many MPs will support my call in Parliament.

Mr Naysmith said: "It is a good and sensible campaign - I am sure the EDM will get lots of signatures in the next few days. The suggestion that there is existing legislation which is not being used must be sorted out.

"I have got some coupons from constituents drawing the campaign to my attention and asking what I am going to do - part of that is the EDM and I will be writing to them all and telling them about it.

"I was chairman of the Port of Bristol Authority for a number of years and clearly there are a lot of ex-Navy and Merchant Navy people who live in my constituency."

The EDM was welcomed by Liberal Democrat defence spokesman and Hereford MP Paul Keetch.

He said: "The plundering of war graves at sea is totally repugnant.

"We must use existing domestic legislation to stop this happening in home waters and work with other nations and international organisations to prohibit the practice in international waters.

"I know this issue is to be raised during Foreign Office Questions in the Commons in two weeks' time - I hope the Government will take the lead with other maritime powers to stamp this out once and for all.

"All of us in Britain are rightly proud of our Naval heritage - I know I am. We must take an international lead on this."

Tewkesbury Conservative MP Laurence Robertson, who also backs the campaign, has tabled a Parliamentary Question to Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon on the issue.

He asks: "What discussions he has had with other foreign ministers about the plundering of ocean war graves and if he will make a statement". Mr Hoon will reply next week.

Mr Robertson said he intended to do more research on the subject and ask supplementary questions.

Fellow Tory James Gray has also responded to the campaign, pledging his whole-hearted support.

He said: "Every day this week, all sorts of people in North Wiltshire have written to tell me that they want ocean war graves protected.

The Early Day Motion reads:

"This house considers that nothing is more repugnant than the violation of the graves of those who died for their country in time of conflict; and believes maritime wrecks designated as 'War Graves' should be protected against plundering for commercial profit by amateur souvenir hunters by a 100 metre exclusion zone around those maritime graves and a 100 year moratorium on diving or filming of these sites."

This is one of my colleagues' response to similar postings on a mailing list and I support what he says. I too am somewhat concerned that an uninformed media driven frenzy may help create a completely inappropriate and unstructured response to the problem, similar to the ill considered knee-jerk reaction we saw after the awful Dunblane incident. Unfortunately if that happens it will be extremely difficult to modify or change anything, PoW 73 was said to be a temporary legislation and that was twenty seven years ago !!

... The campaign ... is blatant press exploitation of survivors and their relatives. It is likely to push the MoD into doing something hasty, inappropriate and difficult to change. The Protection of Wrecks Act after all was pushed through as a temporary stopgap to limit destruction of archaeologically and historically important wrecks. That was in 1973 and increasingly over the years we have seen the disadvantages of the Act.

There is a pressing need for common sense in debating and agreeing legislation which adequately covers disposal of finds, reporting of finds and wrecks, protecting important sites (and deciding what is important), encouraging appropriate access, and promoting our submerged heritage (whether historical, 'war grave', drowned landscape (ie prehistoric settled land now under the sea), recreational 'parks' or whatever) in a way which benefits the maximum numbers of present and future generations of this country and overseas.

There are some important proposals in the Heritage Law at Sea document (see www.wlv.ac.uk/sls/resources/heritage.htm). If we followed their advice the negative effects of some of the anomalies in The Protection of Wrecks Act 1973, The Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, The Merchant Shipping Acts 1995 and The Archaeological Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 (amongst others) would be dramatically reduced.

Steve Liscoe, Operations Officer Archaeological Diving Unit, University of St Andrews