The Queen Mary 2, the world's biggest and most expensive cruise liner, does not fully meet fire regulation standards, it was revealed yesterday.

Cunard is making alterations to bathrooms in all the ship's 1300 cabins and increasing fire patrols on the 150,000-tonne Southampton-based vessel.

Cunard's parent company, the American Carnival Corporation, said the UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency had brought to Cunard's attention that panels in 900 of the bathrooms on the (pounds) 500m French-built ship ''do not fully meet fire regulation standards''.

Carnival said the material in question was in a normally low-risk area of the cabin and that the cabins and corridors were equipped with smoke detectors and sprinklers.

Cunard nevertheless willinstall additional smoke detectors when the 2600-passenger vessel reaches Southampton from New York today.