Toymaker Mattel said on Wednesday morning that there could be toy shortages this Christmas, after announcing its third product recall in just over a month. The toymaker said that it was recalling almost 850,000 toys worldwide as they contained dangerous levels of lead paint.

It blamed some manufacturers in China for flouting its safety guidelines. Ten different toys are being recalled - seven Barbie products and three from the Fisher-Price range.

Mattel also faces the threat of an US official investigation into its handling of this summer’s safety scares. This latest alert takes the total number of toys it has recalled since the start of August to over 20 million. A UK spokeswoman said it was “difficult to say at this stage” whether the ongoing safety problems would lead to a shortage this Christmas. “We’ll do everything in our power to ensure we do not have a shortage,” she said. She explained that an increase in its product testing could lead to a “a slow-up in deliveries.” “We're confident our major brands will be absolutely fine,” the Mattel spokeswoman added.

The American company said that the defective toys were manufactured by two of its contractors. They had outsourced the task of painting and molding of certain products to their own Chinese subcontractors. In one case, it said, though the Chinese factory had been supplied with certified paint, it had instead used other paint, containing impermissible levels of lead, which could cause diarrhoea, vomiting and headaches and even lead to death.

Brian Stockton, Mattel’s International Vice-President, said that the problem had been discovered through the company’s new safety checks. In recent weeks, it had begun extensive testing of its toys and conducted unannounced audits at its subcontractors’ factories. Mattel said, 522,000 of the recalled toys were sold in the US, 2,500 in the UK and 320,000 in the rest of the world.