The bank's head of banking yesterday insisted there had been no pressure from British ministers to provide the initial loan.
The bank gave Sidex owner Lakshmi Mittal £35m, but he may need as much as £200m in further loans to finance what has been described in Romania as the privatisation of the decade.
A Downing Street spokesman claimed he and the pub lic were suffering from "Mittal fatigue", adding that the media were "on autopilot" on the story.
In the hope that the controversy will subside, he refused to comment on the decision of one of Mr Mittal's US subsidiaries to press President George Bush to impose steel tariffs against overseas competitors.
The Department of Trade and Industry has been arguing furiously, alongside the European commission, against tariffs being imposed early next month.
Tony Blair defended the decision to lobby in favour of Mr Mittal's purchase of the Romanian steel industry on the basis that his company was British. The prime minister's spokesman said yesterday that Mr Blair had never claimed a large number of British jobs were involved.
Remarks by Noreen Doyle, head of banking at the bank, supported weekend claims by Clare Short, the international development secretary, that no British ministers had been involved in lobbying for the loan.
"This was one of approximately 100 projects we approved during the course of 2001 and there was no obvious pressure from any source," Ms Doyle said.
Asked if there had been any pressure from Ms Short's department, she said there was none.
But John Whittingdale, the shadow industry spokesman, called for a moratorium on further loans to Mr Mittal's firms. He claimed the revelations about the loan showed "the links between Tony Blair's government and Mr Mittal's company runs far deeper than Labour is willing to admit".
The Labour chairman of the public administration committee, Tony Wright, reflecting widespread concern on the Labour benches, called for the setting up of a public standards commissioner to deal with allegations made over ministerial impropriety. Such allegations are mainly handled in private at present by the head of the civil service.
Mr Wright's committee called for the reform a year ago, but the proposal was rejected by ministers.
