Foreigners suspected of using London's property market to launder ill-gotten gains will be forced to declare where they got their money from, under new government proposals to fight global corruption.

In a bid to end Britain's reputation as a haven for dirty money, any overseas politician or public servant who makes notably lavish purchases in the UK could be forced by police to explain the source of their income.

The measures, known as "unexplained wealth orders", will form part of the agenda on Thursday as David Cameron hosts an international anti-corruption summit in London.

It comes in the wake of the publication of a second tranche of the so-called Panama Papers, which have highlighted concerns that offshore tax havens have been used to launder hundreds of millions of pounds through London's booming property market.

According to the anti-corruption group Transparency International, some 36,000 homes in London 33 boroughs are currently registered as being owned by firms in offshore tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands, which do not have to reveal the buyers' real identities.

In Westminster, this accounted for 9.3 per cent of properties, or nearly one in ten, while in Kensington and Chelsea - London's wealthiest borough - the figure was 7.3 per cent.