IKEA has been forced to deny that they are selling a table shaped like a swastika after a doctored image was posted online.

The picture, claiming to be from an Italian IKEA catalogue shows a swastika table called Hadølf, sparked online outrage after it went viral in Germany.

The flatpack furniture giant is now planning on taking legal action once they have tracked down the source of the doctored photograph.

Online hoax: The fake swastika table called Hadølf was claimed to have been available at IKEA in Italy

'It is of course clear that such a table is not part of our program, either in Italy or anywhere else,' an IKEA spokesperson told The Berliner Zeitung.

In addition to the obvious - that no such table exists - Hadølf's fake price of 88 euro is another loud hoax alarmbell.

The number 88 has long been an abbreviation code for Heil Hitler, a the letter H is the eight in the alphabet.

However it did not stop the reports of the 'Hadølf'-table going around the world, and the furniture chain warned that legal consequences would follow if the person could be tracked down.

Fighting back: IKEA is now planning on taking legal action against the person behind the photograph

Links to Nazi-Germany is a particularly sensitive subject for the Swedish furniture giant, as its founder Ingvar Kamprad was a member of a neo-Nazi group in his youth.

However, when this was revealed in the early 1990s, the 89-year-old billionaire called it youthful 'stupidity'.

Mr Kamprad called his brief involvement 'the greatest mistake of his life', and asked his staff, in particular those of Jewish descent, for forgiveness.