One in 10 Olympic seats left empty, official figures show

The IOC spokesman Mark Adams said: "One of the things we want to look into is how we distribute tickets to our national Olympic committees."

London 2012 chief Lord Coe insisted on Sunday that venues were "stuffed to the gunwales".

Many of the stay-aways are VIPs who were given their tickets by sponsors – including sold-out events such as the swimming and gymnastics finals – but who could not use them.

The Games organiser Locog has claimed it was responding to embarrassing scenes this week – as pictures of half-empty stadiums beamed around the world.

It has already reduced the size of the accredited area to provide more seats to the public.

Some seats were initially handed out to children and army personnel, but even they could not fill the gaps.

Organisers say they are taking back up to 3,800 tickets every day from NOCs and reselling them.

But yesterday Locog finally released the true figures from the first three days of full competition.

On Saturday, just 86 per cent of seats were filled when, out of 414,000 tickets sold, a staggering 58,000 seat-holders never arrived.

The absences did not improve on Sunday, when 67,000 ticketholders did not show, while 50,000 failed to turn up on Monday.

Locog is trying to encourage foreign delegations to hand back their unwanted tickets so they can be resold to the public.