It has issued a subpoena calling for the FBI director, Louis Freeh, to give evidence about two memos he wrote on White House campaign fundraising.

Stephen Sackur: "President Clinton's defenders are confident public sentiment will ensure his survival"

The committee has asked to see the memos and has also subpoenaed former Justice Department prosecutor Charles LaBella.

The deeply divided congressional panel voted on party lines by 20 to 15 in favour of scrutinising Mr Clinton's fundraising activities for the 1996 election campaign.

Henry Hyde: 'Frustrated' with President's testimony

Democrats were outraged that Republicans insisted on pushing through this line of inquiry and said that widening the inquiry is an attempt to revive the sex-and-lies scandal that has rocked the White House.

The investigations will follow on from the committee's analysis of the Monica Lewinsky affair.

John Conyers, a Democrat member of the committee and one of the most vocal against the hearings, said the move was a "desperate attempt to breathe new life into a dying inquiry".

Washington Correspondent Paul Reynolds explains the machinations on Capitol Hill

The White House dismissed the move as evidence of the Republicans' bald political motives:

"To start opening up an entirely new avenue indicates that they have finally come clean and that this has been a solely partisan exercise from the beginning," said spokesman Joe Lockhart.

But committee chairman Henry Hyde said: "We are trying to determine whether there is one law for the rulers and a different one for the ruled."

The judiciary committee was charged with investigating the president's behaviour in the Monica Lewinsky affair, based on the Kenneth Starr inquiry, and deciding whether Mr Clinton's actions were worthy of impeachment.

President Clinton initially denied sexual relations

Republicans feel the president has not come clean over the affair and that his actions deserve more than a censure motion from the House.