Labour appears to have registered three sites, , and .
According to the Conservative Party, in each instance the person behind the website registration, or admin organiser, is given as "The Labour Party" of Westminster, London and the contact name is known to work at Labour Party HQ.
At least one of the websites is very similar to the Conservative Party leader's official website is .
News of the cybersquatting by Labour comes as Prime Minister Tony Blair prepares to give his keynote Labour Party conference speech in Brighton today.
The websites, which are not currently active, were discovered by shadow minister for industry and technology, Michael Fabricant, who says the move is part of a dirty tricks campaign.
"I do not believe the Labour Party have registered these websites in Mr Howard's name in order to sell them back to him. That would be bad enough.
"I believe the plan was to launch a dirty tricks campaign. How desperate have they become," he said.
It is unlikely that such a move is officially sanctioned because cybersquatting is in direct contravention of government policy.
"It exposes Labour as cyber-hypocrites," Fabricant said.
The shadow minister said that when he asked Department of Trade and Industry minister Michael O'Brien a Parliamentary Question about cyber-squatting, the minister condemned the practice.
"Mr O'Brien described the practice as 'pre-emptive bad-faith registration'. Yet here is the Labour Party doing it themselves," said Fabricant.
The practice of cybersquatting is more usually associated with people registering names of businesses or celebrities in order to sell them for a profit.
There was no immediate comment from the Labour Party, but it said it was looking into Fabricant's claim.
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