Brussels - The vast majority of the European Union's bathing waters are clean, though the number of banned sites in Italy has reached record heights, a report out Monday found.

According to the European Commission's annual bathing water report, 95.2 per cent of coastal bathing areas and 88.7 per cent of rivers and lakes complied with the bloc's strict rules on water cleanliness in 2007.

The figures were marginally down from a year earlier, prompting EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas to note that while "a slight downward trend can be observed ... bathing water quality remains high in the European Union."

But in one of the continent's most popular holiday destinations, Italy, the number of banned beaches rose to 300, up from 262 in 2006 and from just 125 in 2002.

However, officials in Brussels noted that this increase showed that Italy was serious about tackling its dirty bathing waters.

At the same time, the percentage of dirty coastal bathing areas was stable in Italy but on the rise in other countries such as Germany, France and Sweden.

Overall, the cleanest bathing waters were found in Greece, Cyprus, Finland and the Netherlands. While in Britain, the number of non- compliant beaches surged from 0.4 per cent in 2006 to 3.5 per cent in 2007.

Internet users can check the water quality of any EU beach, river or lake by consulting an interactive map available at the following website: www. eea. europa. eu/themes/water/mapviewers/bathing.

That data refers to the EU's annual report, meaning that more up- to-date information would have to be obtained from the local media, officials said. (dpa)