Nuzman has also been suspended as an IOC honorary member and "withdrawn" from the Tokyo 2020 Coordination Commission he had been appointed to by IOC President Thomas Bach. 

The 75-year-old former lawyer was arrested yesterday, along with Rio 2016 general director Leonardo Gryner, for alleged involvement in a vote-buying scandal connected to the city's successful bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

They are being indicted for "corruption, money laundering and criminal organisation".

The COB have been suspended by the IOC and will not receive subsidies and payment or be allowed to "exercise its membership rights in NOC associations".

This will not affect athletes, however, who will still be able to compete at next year's Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang "under the umbrella of the COB with all rights and obligations".

In an unprecedented step, the IOC have also "provisionally suspended" all relations with Rio 2016. 

In a far more strongly-worded statement than the one they delivered yesterday, which was widely condemned for failing to understand the seriousness of the situation, the IOC "reiterated its full commitment to the protection of the integrity of sport".

The statement added: "The IOC will continue to address any issue affecting this integrity under the rules and regulations of its recently reformed governance system". 

"It is in the highest interests of the IOC to be able to fully address such matters concerning an IOC member or an IOC honorary member as soon as possible, in order to protect its reputation as an organisation."

They also asked all judicial authorities to provide the IOC Ethics Commission with "all the available information at their earliest convenience" before vowing to "continue to fully cooperate" with all these judicial authorities. 

The provisional suspension of the COB is justified on the grounds that both the National Olympic Committee itself and its President, Nuzman, were responsible for the successful candidature of Rio de Janeiro in 2009.

All subsidies and payments from the IOC will be frozen and they will not be allowed to attend events such as next month's Association of National Olympic Committees and Pan American Sports Organization General Assemblies in Prague.

The provisional suspension may be lifted "partly or fully when the governance issues of the COB have been addressed to the satisfaction of the Executive Board".

In order to "protect the interests" of the Brazilian athletes, they will be unaffected.

"Therefore, the IOC will accept a Brazilian Olympic Team in the Olympic Winter Games Pyeongchang 2018 and in all other competitions under the umbrella of the COB with all rights and obligations," today's statement added.

Olympic scholarships to Brazilian athletes will also continue to be paid.

Athletes may be affected indirectly, though, by the freezing of subsidies and payments.

The IOC also pointed out that they "closed all their obligations" with the Organising Committee in December 2016 after a financial contribution which "exceeded significantly" their contractual obligations, taking into consideration the "grave crisis affecting the country".

They have now also "suspended provisionally all other relations with the Organising Committee".

This will also be lifted partly or fully when the governance issues of the Organising Committee have been addressed to the satisfaction of the IOC Executive Board.

In reality, this decision seems little more than symbolic, as they no longer have a practical relationship.

The IOC's reputation had already been badly tarnished by Rio 2016, even before these latest corruption allegations.  

The decision is a signal of the long-running discontent they have felt over the running of the Olympics which has long been simmering behind the scenes.

Nuzman is suspected by Brazilian prosecutors of being the main link between Arthur Cesar de Menezes Soares Filho, a businessman nicknamed "King Arthur", and Senegal's former International Association of Athletics Federations President Lamine Diack. 

Diack was a voting member of the IOC at the time Rio was awarded the Olympic and Paralympic Games at the IOC Session in Copenhagen eight years ago. 

De Menezes allegedly provided at least $1.5 million (£1.2 million/€1.4 million) through a company set-up by Diack's son, Papa Massata, to help solicit the votes of African IOC members in return for supporting Rio 2016. 

Nuzman has, Federal investigators revealed, filed income tax returns in the last month for items including R$480,000 (£118,000/$155,000/€129,000) found at his residence in five different currencies and for 16 one-kilogram gold bars deposited in Switzerland.

This, they concluded, was done to "give the appearance of transparency and lawfulness to assets that were hidden".