A YOUNG student has been plunged into an international spy scandal - after being told to take tests for Polonium 210 poisoning.

During a trip to London to see a show, Dani Fallon, 20, stayed in a hotel room used by suspects in the bizarre murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.

He died in hospital last November after being poisoned by the substance the previous month.

And Scotland Yard detectives investigating the assassination have told her to undergo testing - as the room where she stayed with friend Hayley Walker, 19, contained traces of the radioactive poison.

Miss Fallon is a second-year student at York St John University and went to London last October with Hayley to see the Queen musical We Will Rock You.

They were meant to stay at the Best Western hotel at Hyde Park but because of a fire there were accommodated instead at the chain's Shaftesbury Avenue hotel - just two nights after the suspects stayed there.

Police called the friends earlier this week to check they had stayed there, then visited Miss Fallon in York on Tuesday and told her she had to be tested.

"We are both really shocked. To start with, we were not that upset but now it's really hit," said Miss Fallon from her family home in Northamptonshire.

"We are going for screening. We are waiting for the Health Protection Agency to contact us and then we will take it from there."

The Metropolitan Police has declined to comment but a spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said more than 1,000 people had been assessed since the investigation began, and more than 700 tested.

He said only 17 people in UK had shown levels classified as being of any concern, out of over 700, and none of those were at any immediate risk.