Donald Trump would be unlikely to have used prostitutes in Moscow because as the patron of the Miss Universe beauty contest he is accustomed to being around attractive women, Vladimir Putin has said.

In his first public comment on claims the Russian security services blackmailed Mr Trump with a sex tape filmed in a Moscow hotel when he visited the city in 2013, Mr Putin said the story was "nonsense" and that the people behind it were "worse than prostitutes".

Claims that Russia holds kompromat, or "compromising material," on Mr Trump emerged in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, that was published by Buzzfeed last week.