St Peter's College, Oxford, is believed to have joined the Chinese authorities in investigating the case of a student who bluffed his way into an-all-expenses-paid trip to Beijing to deliver lectures on subjects he knew nothing about.

When a genuine Western economics expert dropped out of a planned lecture trip because of fears over bird flu, Oxford student Matthew Richardson was recruited.

The fourth-year engineering graduate at St Peter's College, who is studying for his Masters degree, admitted he had never studied economics but jumped at the chance to visit China.

He believed he would be lecturing to school-age students and prepared for the lecture by reading an A-Level textbook on the flight.

On arrival, he learned his audience would be made up of mature Chinese businessmen studying for a business PhD, but persevered anyway despite being totally unqualified to do so.

The affair, which has left academics in Beijing fuming , may now be being investigated by the Chinese police, according to Canterbury-based academic Dr Julian Ng, through whom the trip was organised.

Dr Ng, who has received a string of angry calls and e-mails from Beijing following the incident, said: "I think we were misled and I think he is trying to gain as much mileage out of this as he can."

St Peter's declined to comment.