The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee deemed that evidence from Bedford this month to the Combating Doping in Sport inquiry undermined claims made by Coe in December 2015.

Proceedings centered around an e-mail Bedford sent to Coe in August 2014, first reported by the BBC and the Daily Mail in June.

This contained a complaint that was written four months earlier by Andrey Baranov, the agent of Russia's Liliya Shobukhova, the 2010 winner of the London Marathon and a three-time champion at the Chicago Marathon.

He outlined evidence that a group of officials surrounding then IAAF President Lamine Diack had coerced the Russian into making payments in order to cover-up her failed drugs test.

This seemingly went against Coe's assertion that he was unaware of the claims until they became the subject of an investigation by German journalist Hajo Seppelt on the ARD network in December 2014, four months later. 

The IAAF President does not dispute receiving the e-mail from Bedford, but claimed to have forwarded it on without opening it.

The Committee have today published e-mails between Coe and IAAF Ethics Commission chairman Michael Beloff, as well as a letter from the IAAF President to its chairman Damian Collins.

Coe has been recalled by the Committee to give evidence again, and said he had "been made aware of the allegations" in an e-mail to Beloff in August 2014.

He agreed to release "missing" correspondence between himself and Beloff to the Committee. 

"I have in the last couple of days received copied documentation of serious allegations being made by and on behalf of the Russian female athlete Shobukhova from David Bedford," he said in the August 2014 e-mail.

"I have spoken to David today on the phone and he advises me that he has shared this information with you.

"Should I forward this documentation to you?

"The purpose of this note is of course to advise you that I have now been made aware of the allegations."

In his letter to the Committee, Coe claimed he was not asked about when he had heard about the case when he appeared before them in December 2015.

He asserted that he had been on holiday with his family when Bedford called to ask about the allegations surrounding the Shobukhova case, with the runner then forwarding him the e-mail.

Coe said his office had proceeded to send the e-mail to Beloff, with the official confirming he had already received the information provided.

"David had thought the allegations were serious enough to send information about them first to the Ethics Commission and then to me, and I knew I therefore had a duty to inform the Ethics Commission that I was aware of allegations having being made, and I wanted to ensure that Michael had all the information David had sent to me," Coe wrote.

"Having received these responses from Michael I was satisfied that I had done what I was required to do under the Code of Ethics, that the information was in the right place and would be properly followed up."

Coe concluded: "I was not asked by your Committee when I first knew about the allegations that persons at the IAAF were involved in the cover up of Russian doping cases, and I have made clear I did not read David Bedford's e-mailed documents but asked my office to forward them to the person and the Commission with exclusive authority to investigate, in accordance with my obligations under the IAAF Code of Ethics then in force.

"I trust this clarifies the matter to the satisfaction of the Committee, and as such there are no grounds for suggesting that I misled the Committee in any way in December 2015."

Coe's letter to the Select Committee can be accessed here.

The email exchange can be found here.

Collins told the BBC: "Whatever excuse he gives, it is clear that Lord Coe decided not to share with the Committee information that was relevant to our inquiry on doping in sport.

"The Committee asked him about his knowledge of doping in Russian athletics and of corruption within the sport. 

"In his answers, he gave the impression that he was unaware of specific allegations.

"Thanks to evidence that was presented by the BBC Panorama programme last year, and by David Bedford to the Committee this January, we can see that he was aware, at least in general terms, of the allegations that had been brought forward by the Russian athlete Liliya Shobukhova."