Historian David Irving has told London's High Court the number of Jews who died during the Holocaust has been overstated, and that Auschwitz did not contain gas chambers.

The 62-year-old author of Hitler's War and Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich is seeking libel damages against academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, over a claim that he is a "Holocaust denier".

Professor Lipstadt made her remarks in her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.

Mr Irving says the book has blackened his academic reputation and generated hatred against him.

He vehemently denied the charge levelled at him by defence barrister Richard Rampton, describing it as as a "slur".

The barrister told Mr Irving: "Our case is that you consort with people who are deeply anti-semitic and do it quite frequently."

But the historian, who is representing himself, cut the QC off saying: "It is a very serious charge to make."

Mr Rampton said the "charge" was that Mr Irving made statements "deliberately designed to feed the virulent anti-semitism which, alas, in the world is still alive and kicking".

"Some of the observations you made on these occasions are themselves grossly anti-semitic," he added.

Mr Rampton said Mr Irving had stated at a press conference in 1989 that he could not accept there had been gas chambers at the concentration camp and that Jews could not have been killed in them there.

"For a man to do that and glorify himself as a serious historian is morally wrong," he said, adding the author had done so "because of his political sympathies and attitudes".

Mr Irving, who rejects all their claims against him, told the court he denied that the buildings seen by tourists at Auschwitz "are or have ever been gas chambers".

The case is not being heard in front a jury as both sides felt the mass of documentation made it more appropriate for a judge alone.

The hearing continues. It is expected to last up to three months.