Vauxhall has rebuffed suggestions that over one million Corsa hatchbacks could be at risk of fire following publication of a report in The Sun newspaper.

The manufacturer recalled 230,000 UK-based Zafira B people carriers last year after an investigation uncovered that a fault with a fuse resister – compounded in many cases by make-shift fixes – which had sparked a series of fires.

A subsequent BBC Watchdog investigation into fires in a number of Corsa D hatchbacks, resulting from an electrical fault on 1.4 Turbo models produced between 2006 and 2014, provided another headache for the brand.

Almost 2,700 Corsa D’s had been recalled at the time of the report.

Now The Sun newspaper has claimed that the issues may be more widespread, highlighting that a recall of every Corsa D and E, would involve 1.1million vehicles and would cost the brand around £200million.

A spokesman for Vauxhall said that the newspaper had been wrong to compare the wiring of the Corsa and that of GM's Hummer H3, which was affected by fires in the US, within its report, however, and said that examples of Corsa fires cited in the story were either from Corsas already subject to a recall.

Others, he said, had been subject to third-party repairs and warranted greater investigation, which The Sun had not carried out.

In an official statement, Vauxhall said: “Vauxhall confirms that there is a different vehicle heating and ventilation system configuration in Corsa D/E to the Hummer H3, inclusive of a different connector.

“This why the risk assessment applied to the Hummer H3 cannot be applied to Corsa D/E.

“Vauxhall has no confirmed reports of vehicle fires originating in the vehicle heating and ventilation system of the Vauxhall Corsa D/E.

The Sun said that car fire experts from Burnley-based GBB had investigated the Corsa blazes on its behalf.

Lead engineer Philip Hoyes said that “wiring harness and the failure mode identified in Corsa D models appears similar to those of GM vehicles Hummer H3”.