Bruno Waterfield in Brussels and Henry Samuel in Paris for The Telegraph
European Union consumer safety watchdogs have launched an investigation into reports that Apple iPods and iPhones are "exploding" in the summer sunshine.
Officials have acted after a series of cases in Britain, France, Holland and Sweden in which Apple's digital music players and mobile phones have allegedly spontaneously combusted or exploded.
In the latest incident, Romain Kolega, a French teenager, was injured when his girlfriend's iPhone was said to have exploded into shards after beginning to "crackle and pop like a deep-fryer".
That report followed a British case earlier this month involving an iPod Touch music player belonging to Ellie Stanborough, an 11-year old Liverpool girl.
In July, a Dutch man, named only as Pieter C, claimed that he had left his iPhone in his car for 15 minutes only to return to find that it had caught fire and severely damaged the passenger seat of his vehicle.
An iPod has also been implicated in a Swedish fire this June when a stationary Saab was completely engulfed in flames, almost incinerating the owner's dog.
"We have asked Apple to share with us any information they might have because of press reports of problems relating to iPhones and iPods," said a European Commission official.
The Commission has sent out an alert on its Rapex product safety system requesting the EU's 27 member states for any details or further incidents involving iPods or iPhones.
Apple claims it has ruled out any widespread safety problem with the 200 million iPods and 26 million iPhones sold in Europe, but is carrying out a full investigation into the reported cases.
"Apple have come back to us and said that these are isolated incidents and they do not consider that there is a general problem," said the Commission official.
An Apple spokesman said: "We are aware of these reports and we are waiting to receive the units from the customers. Until we have the full details, we don't have anything further to add."
Mr Kolega, 18, claimed last week that he received a minor eye injury after he picked up his girlfriend's crackling iPhone.
"I felt something like a grain of sand in my eye. It must have been a shard of glass," he said.
In the earlier British case, Ken Stanborough threw his 11 year-old daughter's iPod out the back door of his house when it started hissing and overheating.
"Within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10 feet in the air," he said.
Mr Stanborough has claimed that Apple offered a refund of the £162 music player on the condition that the family sign a confidentiality agreement.
In July it emerged that Apple had tried to block a freedom of information request on iPod "burn and fire-related incidences" by an American journalist for 800 pages of documents from the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.
In June, Apple recalled all first-generation iPod Nanos in South Korea following reports of exploding batteries.
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