Pressed as to whether he had stayed in touch with him, he said: "I have a vague feeling I may have had a Christmas card in the Nineties. When I was living in Paris he passed through once and I shook hands with him but that's the limit."

On Wednesday the Archbishop issued an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology on behalf of the Church of England after admitting he had worked as a dormitory officer and mentor at the holiday camps at which teenage boys were groomed for abuse.

He said the Church had “failed terribly” by not reporting Mr Smyth to police after he was accused of carrying out a string of “horrific” sado-masochistic attacks in the late Seventies.

The allegations were only reported to the police in 2013, after an alleged victim approached the Church with the claims.

Channel 4 News will on Thursday broadcast allegations that Mr Smyth used the camps, which were attended by boys from some of Britain’s leading public schools, to gain access to teenagers, whom he forced to strip naked before subjecting them to savage beatings.

The statement said: “The Archbishop of Canterbury was a dormitory officer at Iwerne holiday camp in the late 1970s, where boys from public schools learnt to develop life as Christians. The role was to be a mentor to the boys, as was that of his now wife at a similar camp for girls.