Olympic torches and any other unauthorized articles with the London 2012 Olympic logo have been banned from sale on China's biggest online retailer Taobao.com, a website official said.

The announcement was issued after online vendors were found selling Olympic torches, which they claimed to be genuine articles from the London 2012 Olympics, at prices that exceeded 70,000 yuan (US$10,982) each.

Others were seen selling replica torches at lower prices, around 2,200 yuan each.

A vendor surnamed Luo told Shanghai Evening News that he was selling genuine Olympic torches which he said he bought directly from torch bearers in London.

Luo told the newspaper that buyers had to pay a deposit of 6,000 yuan and it would take one or two weeks to deliver the goods.

Another vendor said that a total of 15,000 torches were prepared for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Among them, 8,000 were used in torch relay and the rest were backups or gifts for senior government officials.

Torches being sold online at high prices are the backup ones, which can be extremely valuable to collectors, the newspaper quoted the vendor as saying.

Some other vendors told Shanghai Daily yesterday that they were selling torches with permission from the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games.

But according to Shanghai Evening News, an official with the committee announced that they have prepared backup torches, and the total number is below 7,000. The official said that it was impossible for anyone to get backup torches from the committee.

In response, a Taobao official told Shanghai Daily that the torches and some other Olympic goods were banned from being sold on the site.