The doctor who battled to save Princess Diana on her deathbed has dismissed any suggestions that medics should have checked to see if she was pregnant.

Professor Bruno Riou, speaking yesterday to the inquest probing the deaths of Diana and her lover, Dodi al-Fayed, in a high-speed Paris car crash in 1997, said taking time out to examine ultrasound scans would have been "disastrous."

"For a patient like her, bleeding massively and having been subject to cardiac arrest, I would have considered the fact of proceeding to an ultrasound scan as a disastrous loss of time," Riou said.

Dodi's father, luxury-store owner Mohamed al-Fayed, claims the couple was killed by British security services. He says Diana was pregnant with Dodi's child and the royal family did not want a future British king to be a Muslim.

The inquest was opened after British and French police blamed the fatal crash on Diana and Dodi's drunk, speeding chauffeur.