Donald Trump's campaign yesterday denied a news report about two women who said the Republican candidate had groped and kissed them without their consent.

"This entire article is fiction," said Jason Miller, a spokesperson for the Republican nominee, referring to the story published by the New York Times late yesterday.

"For the New York Times to launch a completely false, coordinated character assassination against Mr Trump on a topic like this is dangerous," Miller said in a statement.

Miller said the story "sets a new low for where the media is willing to go in its efforts to determine this election."

The Times' story quotes Jessica Leeds, 74, who said Trump had grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt during a flight to New York City more than three decades ago.

The New Yorker was a travelling businesswoman at the time and sat beside Trump in the first-class cabin. They had never met before.

"He was like an octopus," Leeds told the newspaper. "His hands were everywhere."

Rachel Crooks, who lives in Ohio, said she was a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate investment and development company in Trump Tower in 2005 when she encountered Trump outside an elevator.

After she introduced herself with a handshake, she said Trump would not let go of her hand and began kissing her cheeks, then "directly on the mouth."

Crooks said Trump "was so inappropriate." She told the Times in an interview: "I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that."

Neither women reported the incidents to authorities and never before made their stories public, according to the Times.

The allegations come almost a week after a 2005 tape was leaked to media on which Trump can be heard boasting about using his celebrity status to sexually assault women.

"I'm automatically attracted to beautiful women... I just start kissing them," he says. "When you are a star you can do anything - grab them by the pussy."

But Trump was emphatic during Sunday's presidential debate that he had never actually kissed women or grabbed their genitals without their permission.

"No I have not," he said when questioned about whether his comments reflected the truth and insisted that "it was locker room talk."

The recording has roiled his campaign and caused many top Republicans to sever ties to their party's nominee.

- dpa