The parents of a two-year-old girl who had her organs removed by Spanish doctors after dying on holiday today expressed their horror that no one asked their permission to retain her organs.

Doctors in Tenerife removed all of Megan Jones' organs after she contracted a virus and died of natural causes while on holiday with her parents.

Though her parents, Debbie Ali and David Jones, had agreed to donate her liver and kidneys, they were not consulted about the removal of her other organs.

The foreign office confirmed that under Spanish law, doctors do not have to ask for parental permission before retaining organs.

A coroner in Merseyside discovered that Megan's organs were missing while carrying out a second inquest and post-mortem.

Ms Ali, 29, told the Daily Post in Liverpool: "I will never recover from the shock of losing my beautiful little girl. But what they did to her afterwards was horrific."

A spokesman for the coroner's office in Wirral, Merseyside, confirmed that Megan died at the University Hospital in Santa Cruz on April 14.

He said that pathologists at Alder Hey hospital discovered all Megan's organs had been removed, and the child's body had been packed with surgical padding.

Megan's family are still waiting for the missing organs to be returned.

A spokesman for the foreign office said: "Local laws allow for the removal, retention and disposal of organs or tissue during the post mortem process.

"The authorities in Spain do not have to inform relatives or the consul about this and the Foreign Office has no jurisdiction to intervene or change the law.

"We will do all we can to reduce the suffering and we endeavour to return Megan's organs to the UK as quickly as possible," he said.

In the UK, medical staff must obtain consent from next of kin before removing the organs of either a child or an adult. Even when an adult has signed an organ donor register or carries a card specifying their wishes, the specific consent of family is required.

A spokeswoman for UK Transplant said in Megan's case there were two reasons why the two-year-old's organs might have been retained: donation for transplant and organ retention, possibly for research. In Britain, family members would have to provide consent for each type of use.

More than 5,700 people across the UK are currently waiting for an organ to be found for them, the spokeswoman for UK Transplant said. If those who have become too ill while waiting for a transplant are included, the number rises to about 7,000 people.

There is a shortage of donors in the UK, and only about 2,800 transplants are carried out each year in Britain. About 400 people die every year while waiting for a suitable organ.

The British Medical Association (BMA) would like to see a system of presumed consent for adults, where doctors could use organs for donation unless the family specifically said otherwise.

This system, a BMA spokeswoman said, would go some way towards lowering the number of people who die each year while waiting for a transplant.

The need to obtain consent for children should remain, she said.

Both the BMA and UK Transplant stressed that the need to obtain consent from families was not the only issue holding back transplant numbers.

The BMA cited the need for more intensive care beds, and UK Transplant pointed out that in Spain, every hospital has a transplant coordinator, while the UK has nowhere near as many.

"The key message is to tell your loved ones your wishes," said the spokeswoman for UK Transplant, adding that families found decisions easier to make if the deceased has made their wishes known.

"Families say time and time again they gain some small comfort from donation."