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Vladimir Putin has met with three of the four losing candidates in Sunday's election and promised them to investigate allegations of electoral fraud after European election observers cited "serious problems", telegraph.co.uk reported.

Mr Putin said he would ask elections chief Vladimir Churov to "thoroughly check all possible violations about which you have spoken" as he met with all the election losers save Gennady Zyuganov, the communist challenger who came second and who has refused to recognise the result, at a health complex on the edge of Moscow on Monday.

Mr Churov is known among protest leaders as "The Magician" because of his apparently magical power to ensure smooth elections for the ruling authorities.

Already on Mnoday he has dismissed claims of vote fixing. He also accused international observers of being spies, saying:"More and more often, monitors feel the irresistible desire to penetrate border zones, closed nuclear sites, missile centres and so on. The number of those with such a desire is growing."

Officials from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and other organisations said there was evidence of irregularities at one third of the polling stations it observed, including evidence of ballot-box stuffing. Monitors called for alleged violations to be investigated immediately.

Their preliminary findings said campaigning had been "clearly skewed" towards one candidate - without naming Mr Putin – with limitations on the selection of candidates and evidence of strong bias in the largely state-controlled media.

Tiny Kox, a Dutch politician and head of the Council of Europe, said at a press conference: "The competition lacked fairness and an impartial referee was missing."

Russian activists said they had tracked 4,000 examples of malpractice across the vast country's 91,000 polling stations. Mr Putin secured almost 64 per cent of the vote, winning back the Russian presidency which he held for two terms from 2000-2008 before his four-year stint as prime minister. His nearest rival, the Communist Party boss Gennady Zyuganov, trailed well behind.

The Foreign Office said it was withholding any reaction until it had read the findings of the OSCE’s election arm, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

"We await the preliminary report of the OSCE / ODIHR election observation mission with interest," said a Foreign Office spokesman.

"We fully support the importance of democratic elections in Russia, as elsewhere in the world. As a Council of Europe member state, Russia has an obligation to uphold key democratic norms and standards."

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was however due speak to Vladimir Putin to wish him success in his presidency.

Relations between Britain and Russia soured over the murder of ex-agent turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. He died after drinking tea laced with polonium.

Moscow has since snubbed a British extradition request for former agent Andrei Lugovoi, and the two countries have recently clashed in the United Nations Security Council over a resolution condemning the Syrian regime’s crackdown on protestors. Russia, followed by China, blocked the resolution.