The governing body is due to debate whether to retrospectively strip athletes of its European Athlete of the Year Trophy if they have subsequently been suspended during their careers.

European Athletics said they planned to carry out "a review of previous European Athletics award recipients and to consider recommendations about the award criteria for future recipients" at its three-day Council meeting due to start in Paris tomorrow.

European Athletics added: "This review was undertaken with a view to ensuring that individual recipients, both past and in the future, have adhered to a strong ethical and moral code of conduct during their career in the sport, and that their awards are justified in this context, and also to ensure the continued credibility of European Athletics awards."

They have already changed their rules so that in future athletes who have served a doping ban of two years or more are ineligible for the award. 

Among those that could be affected if European Athletics takes retrospective action are two British sprinters, Linford Christie and Dwain Chambers, winners of the Trophy in 1993 and 2002 respectively. 

Christie was the first-ever winner of the Trophy 24 years ago following a season in which he had added the World Championships 100 metres gold medal in Stuttgart to the Olympic title he had won at Barcelona 1992.

In 1999, Christie was found guilty of using the anabolic steroid nandrolone following a positive test at a meeting in Germany. 

He was found to have more than 100 times normal levels of the metabolites of the drug in his urine and was banned by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for two years.

Chambers was awarded the Trophy after a season during which he had won the 100m at the European Championships in Munich. 

A year later, however, he tested positive for a cocktail of banned drugs and was banned for two years.

The Briton later admitted he had been using banned drugs in 2002 and he was stripped of his European 100m title.

Other athletes awarded the Trophy who later tested positive for drugs include Russia's Mariya Savinova, the winner in 2011 after racing to the gold medal in the 800m at the World Championships in Daegu.

A year later, Savinova won the Olympic gold medal at London 2012.

But In 2014, she was filmed on German television admitting she had used the anabolic steroid oxandrolone.

She was stripped of the titles she had won at Daegu and London.

In February, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) recommended Savinova should be banned from the sport for life.

As well as Chambers, the female winner of the Trophy in 2002 may also be retrospectively stripped of her title.

Turkey's Süreyya Ayhan won the 1,500m at the European Championships in Munich but was banned by the IAAF for two years on the eve of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens after being found guilty of obstructing drugs testers.

She returned to competition following the completion of her suspension, but failed another test while she was training in the United States in November 2007, this time after her sample tested positive for the steroids stanozolol and methandienone metabolites.

Ayhan received a life ban from the IAAF, a decision later upheld by the CAS.

Stephanie Graf, the woman Ayhan had succeeded as winner of the European Athlete of the Year Trophy, could also come under scrutiny.

The Austrian won the Trophy in 2001 after finishing second in the 800m at the World Championships that year in Edmonton.

She was suspended in 2010 following revelations that she had been one of up 30 Austrian athletes allegedly involved in illegal blood doping practices. 

The Council meeting, which IAAF President Sebastian Coe is due to attend. is also due to hear a report from European Records Credibility Project Team.

They have been studying the credibility of European records with a view to regaining public trust in them.

The Project Team, led by Ireland's Pierce O'Callaghan, were given the mandate to draft recommendations for action by European Athletics.

Several records could be removed from the history books as a result.