Parliament's sleaze watchdog has launched an inquiry into complaints made against shadow chancellor George Osborne.
Standards Commissioner John Lyon's investigation was triggered by a complaint from Labour MPs John Mann and Kevan Jones over some £500,000 in donations received by Mr Osborne.
It emerged at the weekend that the money - which was paid through the Conservative Party - had been declared to the Electoral Commission, the official elections watchdog.
However it was not included in Mr Osborne's personal entry in the Register of Members' Interests, even though some of the donors had specified that the money should go towards the cost of running his office.
In a statement, Mr Lyon said: "The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has received a formal complaint alleging a failure by Mr George Osborne MP to record financial donations to his office in the Register of Members' Interests.
"The Commissioner is making inquiries in respect of this complaint in accordance with the published procedures.
"He will not be making any further statement on this complaint or give reports on the progress of his inquiries. He will report as necessary on this matter to the Committee on Standards and Privileges."
Mr Osborne said today that he had taken advice from the House of Commons authorities, but the rules were unclear.
"We always sought to be open and transparent. We went ourselves to the House of Commons authorities before this was in headlines, before anyone asked any questions about it," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
"The advice that we got, as we understood it, is that we didn't have to declare donations to the central party, the Conservative Party, which are used to employ Conservative Party staff on Conservative Party contracts.
"Of course money going directly to someone's office should be declared in the Register of Members' Interests.
"These donations - the question was should they be declared twice if they are donations to the central party?"
"I think the House of Commons authorities, who themselves accept that the advice is unclear in this area, should now go away and look at this and make the rules clear."
The disclosure was an embarrassment for the Conservatives at a time when they were attacking Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain over his failure to declare £103,000 in donations to his Labour deputy leadership campaign either to the Electoral Commission or in the Register of Members' Interests.
The Tories, however, argued that the details of their donations had always been publicly available.
It has emerged that an undisclosed number of Mr Osborne's frontbench colleagues have also failed to record the sources of funding for their own shadow ministerial offices.
This week, the Tories reacted furiously to what they said was a Labour smear designed to draw attention away from the row engulfing Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain.
Meanwhile, Labour has launched a concerted effort to make the most of the uncertainty, by marshalling MPs and ministers to attack the Shadow Chancellor.
Mr Osborne said emails released by the Tories showed the party had complied with advice from the Commons authorities on to whom donations should be declared.
The money in question, from some of the country's wealthiest individuals, was received by Conservative campaign headquarters and duly registered with the Electoral Commission.
Party donors are allowed to ask for all or part of their contributions to be used to support the costs of the Shadow Cabinet.
The Tories said Chief Whip Patrick McLoughlin asked the office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for advice on how these donations should be recorded.
He met Registrar Alda Barry in the wake of the Labour donors scandal to clarify what should be declared to the Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary Commissioner.
The Tories claim that Miss Barry has since admitted she could have been wrong in the advice she gave to Mr McLoughlin.
The £487,000 received by Mr Osborne's office included £100,000 from carpet king Lord Harris of Peckham.
Serena Rothschild, from the banking family, asked for her entire £190,000 donation to the party to be passed on to Mr Osborne.
Labour MP Kevan Jones said: "This is yet another example of the hypocrisy of the Tory Party, who lecture others on probity and donations yet have myriad scams disguising the true funders of their party."
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