The government is calling on Turkey to investigate allegations by its former prime minister, Mesut Yilmaz, that the state funded a secret programme in the mid-1990s to start massive wildfires in Greece during a crisis between the two countries that brought them to the brink of war.

Yilmaz, who governed Turkey 1997 and 1999 as leader of the Motherland Party, claimed in a Turkish newspaper interview that his predecessor and bitter conservative rival Tansu Ciller had backed the programme.

"Information that has been published and attributed to former prime minister of Turkey Mr Yilmaz by the Turkish press is serious and should be investigated. The Greek side expects to be informed by the authorities of Turkey," foreign ministry spokesman Gregory Delavekouras said in a statement.

The two countries narrowly avoided war in 1996 in a military stand-off over the tiny, uninhabited island of Imia, in the crisis defused by high-level mediation by the United States.

Turkey's Motherland Party and True Path Party, once headed by Ciller, have seen a near-collapse in popular support, following the rise of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).