Innocent people have been wrongly jailed for child abuse, a committee of MPs has claimed.

As he published a hard-hitting report by the home affairs committee, the Labour MP Chris Mullin said he had "no doubt" that a number of innocent people had been wrongly convicted.

The committee claimed many police investigations into child abuse do not generate enough evidence to satisfy a burden of proof.

It called for new safeguards for the investigation and trials of child abuse cases that date back many years and involve people who once worked in children's homes.

They claim there is now "a new genre of miscarriages of justice" caused by "the over-enthusiastic pursuit" of abuse allegations in children's homes by police.

A "large number of people" who are not charged with any offences may have had their lives ruined or seriously damaged by unfounded allegations, warns the cross-party committee.

The committee calls for a range of reforms - including audio or video recording of police interviews with alleged victims and anonymity for the accused.

The MPs also call on the Home Office to tighten the rules of evidence and for wider powers for the Criminal Cases Review Commission to enable alleged miscarriages of justice to be reviewed.

Ministers were also urged to review compensation arrangements for victims in order to minimise the risk of compensation being an inducement.

Mullin, who made his name as a campaigner against miscarriages of justice against Irish republicans, said many investigations had caused massive damage.

"I am in no doubt that a number of innocent people have been convicted and that many other innocent people, who have not been convicted, have had their lives ruined," he said.

"No one wishes to minimise the suffering of victims of abuse or the damage that it can do their lives, but the plain fact is that many police trawls are not generating evidence of sufficient quality to satisfy the burden of proof.

"A point which is graphically illustrated by the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service rejects a staggering 79 per cent of institutional child abuse cases referred by the police compared to an overall rejection rate of just 13 per cent."