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Launching the interim report today, Baroness Kingsmill said: “The panel has set out an approach designed to protect vulnerable young workers in an industry which appears to be glamorous but which has hidden risks and that for all practical purposes is largely unregulated and unmonitored.

“During our investigations members of the panel became increasingly concerned as we heard more details about the working conditions faced by many models, and the vulnerability of young women working in an unregulated and scarcely-monitored work environment.

“There was also strongly expressed concern that it is profoundly inappropriate that girls under 16 under the age of consent should be portrayed as adult women. The risk of sexualising these children was high, and designers could risk charges of sexual exploitation."

The inquiry is requesting responses to its interim report. Its final report, along with a final set of recommendations is due to be published in September, when the next London Fashion Week takes place.

The probe was launched by the British Fashion Council seven weeks ago after controversy over the number of models aspiring to the US size zero - the equivalent of a UK size four. The trend appears to have begun with celebrities such as Nicole Richie dieting down to the super-thin size.

In August 2006, Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos, 22, died of heart failure after not eating for several days. Her death was followed in November by that of Ana Carolina Reston, a Brazilian model who suffered from anorexia.

Madrid Fashion Week last year banned models with a BMI of less than 18 from taking part. Doctors use the index, which is a ratio of height to weight, to calculate the healthy size for an individual.

During its last London Fashion Week in February, the British Fashion Council asked designers to use only “healthy looking” models aged 16 and over. But it fell short of banning stick-thin girls from the catwalk.

The members of the Model Health Inquiry panel include the fashion designers Betty Jackson and Giles Deacon, and Erin O’Connor, a model. Also on board are Sarah Doukas, the founder of Storm Model Management; Charlotte Clark, the co-director of INCA Productions; Paula Reed, the style director of Grazia magazine; Professor Wendy Dagworthy, the head of the School of Fashion and Textiles at the Royal College of Art; and Dr Adrienne Key, a consultant psychiatrist and eating disorders expert.

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