Children's Minister Kevin Brennan said the local council had lost track of 33 female pupils who were no longer in the city's secondary schools.

And he told a Home Affairs Select Committee examining the issue of forced marriages that there were another 14 areas of the country with high rates of so-called honour violence.

Mr Brennan said officials were inquiring into the number of under-16s missing from school rolls in those areas.

The committee's chairman, Keith Vaz MP, said the number of girls from Bradford schools whose whereabouts was not known was shocking.

Earlier this year the Government claimed that 250 school girls aged between 13 and 16 had been taken off school rolls in the city after failing to return from trips abroad last year.

That figure was disputed by education chiefs in Bradford who said the latest figures showed 205 girls were initially not accounted for but that 172 had been traced – meaning 33 remained missing.

Confirming these figures, Mr Brennan said: "It is a serious concern when any child – any single child – becomes unaccounted for.

"And what we need to try to do is seek an explanation of what has happened."

Asked by MPs whether the police were looking for them, he added: "They should be."

Mr Vaz, a Labour former Minister, said: "We are genuinely very concerned because these are very, very serious matters."

"The figures you have given us quite frankly have shocked members of this committee just in relation to Bradford.

"There are 14 other areas where there are missing children. This is totally unsatisfactory."

The Home Affairs Committee is carrying out an investigation into domestic abuse, forced marriage and honour crimes. It warned last week that the official figures on forced marriage were only the tip of the iceberg.