The press watchdog has attacked newspapers which make cash payments to police informants.

The new chairman of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), Sir Christopher Meyer, told MPs on Wednesday that it "is not a practice I could possibly condone".

"It doesn't need the chairman of the PCC to tell newspaper editors that they shouldn't break the law," he said.

Meyer, a former press secretary to John Major, was quizzed on the issue by members of the culture, media and sport committee.

The move follows Rebekah Wade's admission that the Sun newspaper routinely paid police officers for information.

The committee is investigating the treatment of people who are not in the public eye. Critics of the media say the current rules do not give members of the public enough protection from an increasingly sensationalist press.

Committee chairman Gerald Kaufman praised Wade for being "commendably straight" in admitting the practice went on.

And he slammed the Press Complaints Commission for failing to address the issue.

"Would it not be useful for the PCC to make a statement to say 'now this has been brought out into the open we call on all editors to desist from such practices'?" he asked.

Kaufman also criticised the way bereaved families of soldiers killed in Iraq had been treated by the press.

He questioned why the PCC had not issued a warning to editors ahead of the war.

"I did give thought to this. In the end I judged that it wasn't necessary. I am very open to doing that sort of thing in the future," Meyer told the committee.

But he dismissed the idea of fining newspapers found to have broken the PCC's code of practice as national newspapers could afford big fines.

Editors would use lawyers to defend their case, demand an appeal system and the process would be "severely compromised" he warned.

"The trouble with money is it actually throws up other problems. What's the tariff? How high do you set it?" he told the committee.

The PCC chief accepted that one key problem was the poor coverage given by newspapers to apologies and retractions.

"It's in the interest of editors themselves because it's in the interest of self-regulation that when they apologise for these things it should be at least as prominent. I know there's a patchy record on this," he said.