ROME - ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday dismissed months of allegations about his sex life as 'all lies' as he prepared to host the Group of Eight summit in central Italy.

'They are all lies, from the underage girls onward,' Mr Berlusconi told a news conference when he was asked whether the scandals that have been dogging him since April would cloud the summit starting on Wednesday.

The questioner was from the left-leaning daily La Repubblica, which has made a steady stream of allegations beginning with an unexplained relationship between the Italian leader and a 17-year-old aspiring model whose coming-of-age party he attended.

'My (G-8) colleagues know the newspapers well and know how to judge them,' Mr Berlusconi said, dismissing a report in the London Guardian quoting unnamed senior Western officials as describing planning for the summit as 'chaotic.'

'It was a colossal blunder by a small newspaper,' Mr Berlusconi said. The flamboyant billionaire's relationship with teenager Noemi Letizia was the last straw for his estranged second wife Veronica Lario, who has filed for divorce.

That scandal was compounded when explicit photographs emerged of scantily clad guests cavorting at Mr Berlusconi's luxury villa in Sardinia and an investigation into whether the prime minister entertained call girls at his parties.

Mr Berlusconi, 72, answered that charge with the remark that he had never paid for sex, preferring the 'pleasure of conquest.' A call girl, Patrizia D'Addario, told Corriere della Sera last week that she had gone twice to Mr Berlusconi's Rome residence on the promise of earning 2,000 euros (S$4,000) for each visit.

Investigators in Bari have interviewed D'Addario and three other young women who claim to have been paid to take part in a party at one of Mr Berlusconi's homes, Italian media have reported.

Early last month, Italian authorities seized hundreds of photos which were taken at Berlusconi's Sardinian villa.

Some of the pictures were published in the Spanish paper El Pais and showed Mr Berlusconi in his garden surrounded by women. Other photos showed topless women and a man who was totally nude near a pool.

Mr Berlusconi is also under investigation for allegedly misusing his official plane to fly personal guests, including a flamenco dancer and a well-known singer, to his villa.

The scandals have drawn comment from the Roman Catholic Church, which is heavily influential in Italy. Cardinal Walter Kasper said that 'everybody, but above all a head of government' should behave with 'seriousness and sobriety.' -- AFP