European anti-monopoly regulators raided the offices of Intel and several computer makers across Europe yesterday.

Investigators visited the chip maker's offices in the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy, as well as the premises of computer makers including Dell's UK branch.

A European Commission representative cited an ongoing competition case against Intel as the reason for the search.

A spokesperson for Intel acknowledged the raids and said that they were part of an ongoing investigation.

"We continue to believe that our business practices bare both fair an lawful, " he told vnunet.com.

In March Japanese authorities found Intel guilty of misconduct and imposed a $50m fine on the chip vendor.

AMD, which has supported both the EU and Japanese investigations, filed a private antitrust lawsuit against Intel last month. 

"Today's dawn raids should come as good news to consumers across Europe," said Thomas McCoy, executive vice president of legal affairs at AMD.

"The European Commission raids show that Intel cannot and should not escape the scrutiny of antitrust officials around the world.

"Nor can Intel escape the consequences of its anti-competitive actions, which raise prices, threaten innovation and harm consumers."

Intel holds about 90 per cent of the market for x86 processors that power the majority of the world's desktop computers and low-end servers.