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European Commission antitrust officials declined to elaborate on the details of their inquiry, saying only that they has contacted the makers of both high definition formats to request licensing information to see whether the terms comply with EU competition rules. They stressed that this does not mark the start of a formal investigation.

They would not specify which companies had been contacted, though they are almost certain to include Sony, which developed the original Blu-ray specification, and Toshiba, the power behind HD DVD. Toshiba was not prepared to comment but Sony appeared unconcerned.

'There are no indications of any complaint, nor of any antitrust concerns on the part of the Commission or anyone else,' the company said in a statement.

The Blu-ray Disc Association and its HD DVD counterpart license their technologies to both hardware makers and disc producers and there is no obvious evidence of restrictive practices.

Neither needs any bad publicity as they battle to convince an apparently sceptical public that their respective format is the one to buy into, and that their restrictive DRM technologies can be trusted.