CAIRO: Egyptian prosecutors asked parliament on Saturday for permission to investigate an Islamist MP police say was caught performing an “indecent” act with a woman in public, official media reported.

The official MENA news agency quoted a police report saying that Ali Wanis, a cleric and MP for the ultra-conservative Al-Nur party, was found engaged in an “indecent” act with a 22-year-old woman in a car parked on a highway on Thursday.

Wanis has issued a public statement denying the allegation and said in a video posted in his website that he had parked along the side of the road because his passenger “became sick.”

Judicial sources told AFP that the prosecution's request in such cases, when someone is caught in the act, is a formality and the prosecution has summoned Shafiq for questioning.

Al-Nur party, which represents the more conservative brand of Salafi Islam, won the second largest number of seats in parliamentary elections last winter.

It was hit with a scandal in March when another lawmaker was forced to resign from parliament and from his party after claiming that he was injured in a carjacking, to explain bandages on his face, when in fact he had had a nose job.