Labour spokesman on home affairs, Gavin Gulia, yesterday asked why officials from the EU border agency Frontex had visited Lampedusa but not Malta, “when the problem here is much greater”.

He said the government had announced two weeks ago that joint patrols along the “Malta route” would start this month.

He said Wednesday’s edition of Italian newspaper La Repubblica carried a story about the arrival on Lampedusa of officials from the Frontex agency and the commission “to assess the situation in Lampedusa and give a report during a technical meeting”.

He said that although the idea is to patrol the Mediterranean coast together with the Greeks and the Maltese, the government must ensure that Malta is not ignored along the way.

Dr Gulia said the agency had already visited Spain a month ago and now it had decided to visit Lampedusa.

“It is a known fact that the situation in Lampedusa, although alarming, is not as bad as it is in Malta which, apart from being a sovereign state, also has the highest population density compared to Lampedusa were only a few hundred people live,” he said.

He asked: “What made Frontex go to Lampedusa first and not Malta? What is the government doing to bring these officials over to Malta?”