Greece has missed a deadline from the European Commission to give a full account of financial operations allegedly used by Athens to hide the true extent of its budget deficit, officials said on Monday.

Greek authorities had to hand over all the information on such schemes by Friday but have not yet done so, telling European Commission officials that the delay was due to a four-day strike at the country's finance ministry.

The European Commission's data office "Eurostat has received some information, but not all the information needed from Greek authorities," said a spokesman for the Commission, the EU's executive arm.

Brussels is hoping to receive the documents "very soon" as "this would be to the advantage of all parties concerned," he said.

Eurostat's inquiry focuses on allegations in the New York Times and Financial Times that major Wall Street banks helped Greece hide the holes in its budget through tricky operations that allowed it to join the eurozone.

Greece's finance minister has said the schemes were legal at the time.

There is no financial aid scheduled to help out Greece, according to the spokesman of the European commissioner for Economic and Monetary affairs.

The weekly Der Spiegel had mentioned the existence of a 25 billion euro rescue plan for Greece.

"There is no financial rescue plan for Greece", Olli Rehn's spokesman said today. Greece, he explained, "has not asked for any money and all stories about plans that are ready are sheer speculation".

But if Athens asks the EU for help, "clearly, if necessary, we are ready to intervene, also financially", the spokesman added.

Meanwhile Greece has already missed the first deadline set by Brussels: last Friday Athens was supposed to send Eurostat all information on swap operations. Due to a strike that reportedly also had an impact on the Finance Ministry, the figures have not been sent yet.