A EURO MP challenged tech giants yesterday to come clean about the use of conflict minerals in their products.

SNP MEP Alyn Smith has warned that — in a repeat of the blood diamond scandal — minerals used in mobile phones, laptops and games consoles are being sourced in “conditions of extreme exploitation, violence and slavery.”

He has written to company chief executives asking them for confirmation that they are not using tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold collected in this way from areas such as Colombia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

“Many Scots will find it shocking that the ores of the ‘three T’s and gold’ can be found in everyday items ranging from mobile phones to hearing aids,” he said.

“Conflict minerals are a little-understood facet to procurement and it is positive that the world is waking up to the fact that we may be complicit in modern-day slavery.”

At more than half of the DRC’s mining sites, armed militias are using rape and violence to coerce the local population to carry out backbreaking work, according to the International Peace Information Service.

Mr Smith, a member of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, is calling for the introduction of a compulsory scheme that will make companies label goods that contain conflict minerals.

Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund spokesman Jo O’Neill said the EU’s current voluntary scheme was not good enough.

He said: “We have witnessed how the global trade in minerals — like gold and tin — is fuelling violence, instability and misery.

“MEPs and Member States have an important opportunity to ensure companies do not profit from conflict. It must not be missed.”