Sex attacks are at their highest level for years in Austria with an average of 12 new cases being reported every day, new figures reveal.

Officials said the numbers included 24 cases reported over the New Year period which at the time police denied had taken place.

Police later claimed they covered up the assaults in order to protect the privacy of the victims, but rejected a suggestion they had so on the order of politicians.

The statistics show that in January there were 343 complaints about sex-related incidents.

Migrants pictured outside the main rail station in Salzburg last year. Sex attacks are at their highest level for years in Austria with an average of 12 new cases being reported every day. Of those, 25 have involved charges being made against asylum seekers, new figures have revealed

A total of 25 have involved charges being made against asylum seekers, while another 43 involve foreigners from countries including Turkey, Macedonia and Germany.

In 175 cases, Austrians are under suspicion.

There was no information about the 100 remaining sex attacks included in the report.

Of the sex attacks, 61 were rapes, in which 38 cases Austrians are suspected of being the attackers.

Six are suspected of being asylum seekers, including two from Syria and one from Iraq.

The ages of those accused range from 11 through to 82. There was no information on the remaining 17 rapes.

Police have pledged to react to the growing problem by increasing the use of video surveillance technology and also offer more advice to women and girls about keeping themselves safe.

When the figures were revealed, one Austrian newspaper noted how they had been accused of lying when they initially reported the problem.

On January 7, tabloid newspaper Osterreich revealed that sex attacks had not just been carried out in the German city of Cologne over New Year's Eve, but also in Austria where there had been systematic attacks by young refugees on women.

Hundreds of migrants who arrived by train at Hegyeshalom on the Hungarian and Austrian border walk the four kilometres into Austria in September

But the newspaper's reporter Victoria Bichler had then been subjected to a campaign of abuse including the suggestion that she had simply made up her report.

However, in an answer to an official parliamentary question earlier this week by the opposition Team Stronach Party, the paper says that its original story was not only proved correct, but that the real situation was far worse than previously thought.

In total, according to the parliamentary answer, there were 24 sexual assaults on women over the New Year at the time when Austrian police were claiming there had been none.

The Interior Ministry statement said: 'Vienna and Salzburg were the cities with the biggest problem.

'Most of the sex attacks happened on women at public events. They were targeted mostly by small groups of asylum seekers who, after surrounding them, then attacked.'

Until the official reply, only half of the attacks had been ever reported in Austrian media.

Questioned by the newspaper about why they kept them secret, a police spokesman said that the right to privacy of the victim took priority over the right of the public to know about the incidents.