The Belfast Agreement could collapse if there were moves to disband the RUC, the Ulster Unionist Party has warned.
The UUP security spokesman in the Northern Ireland Assembly, Mr Michael McGimpsey, was responding to an Irish Times report that preliminary drafts of the Patten commission report recommended membership of the RUC should effectively disband and reapply to join a newly-constituted police service.
"If the Irish Times article proposals are true, such a move could place the Agreement under unbearable strain. Under no circumstances will the decent people of Northern Ireland accept the ridiculous demands of Sinn Fein to have the RUC disbanded."
The Irish Times report was firmly denied by the chairman of the Independent Commission on Policing, Mr Chris Patten. "There is no preliminary report. We have not started forming conclusions. We have not started shaping our opinions or shaping the outline of this report.
"We are not in the business of self-flagellation. We are not going around holding 30-odd meetings in the next few weeks as a sort of pre-Christmas pantomime. If we had had a report in the cupboard we wouldn't be going through this exercise," Mr Patten said.
Supporting him, the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, said: "It's this kind of coverage, not based in fact, that doesn't help anybody."
The First Minister and UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, attended a meeting with Mr Patten yesterday to discuss the matter. He said: "We wait to see now what further will be said by the media responsible as to the provenance, as to the origins of this paper, because I think in view of the statement Mr Patten has made that he has not authorised and not seen any paper of this description then those who reported the matter with such prominence this morning have to provide something more by way of explanation themselves."
The DUP security spokesman, Mr Gregory Campbell, said the issue was whether the Patten commission was "contemplating such fundamental changes as those suggested in this document before even embarking on a consultation process which will take them to 30 locations across Northern Ireland".
The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said the UUP warning about the collapse of the agreement was another attempt to rewrite the document.
"The overwhelming majority of the Irish people have ratified the agreement. This includes the formation of the executive, the all-Ireland bodies and indeed the provisions to establish a new acceptable policing service," Mr McLaughlin said.