Malaysia is to undertake product tests after a consumer group claimed some toys - mostly Chinese-made - contained high levels of lead paint, a junior minister said today.

S Veerasingam, deputy minister of domestic trade and consumer affairs, told AFP that the government will ensure that toys sold in Malaysia were safe, and remove any that are not.

"We will conduct tests on toys sold in the country. If they are found with high levels of lead, then we will launch a crackdown," he said.

Veerasingam said it was not clear "how widespread was the sale of toys tainted with lead."

Ratna Devi Nadarajan, director of the Malaysian Association of Standard Users, said on Wednesday that 24 types of toys, mostly made in China, contained high levels of lead.

"We tested 24 types of toys and found them all to contain high levels of lead and we need to carry out more tests to determine the exact amount toys here contain lead.

"The problem is that nobody is at present testing toys to determine if they are safe or not and that is very worrying," she said.

World's top toy exporter

China is the world's top toy exporter, selling 22 billion toys overseas last year, or 60 percent of the global total, but there are increasing concerns about how safe they are.

Ratna urged the government to act fast to take the toys off the shelves.

"We can't just sit and wait, doing nothing. We are worried about the other toys out there. We don't know what is their lead content and how safe these toys are.

"We urge the ministry to examine these toys so that they can be taken off the markets and our children will be safe," she added.

The United States government last month issued a number of product-safety recalls affecting hundreds of thousands of Chinese-made toys and jewelry amid fresh concerns about lead paint.

The world's biggest toy maker, Mattel, has been particularly hard hit by recalls this year.

Chinese manufacturers have seen their image tarnished by the spate of product recalls affecting toys that have sullied the "Made-in-China" brand in the US and other countries.