I'm Berlusconi's secret lover, says beauty queen

A 20-year-old former beauty queen has claimed she has been the "secret lover" of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi since she was 18.

Former Miss Montenegro Katarina Knezevic said she found the 75-year-old Italian leader "extraordinary".

"In love, age is not important," the Daily Express quoted Knezevic as telling Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

Knezevic said their "two-year affair" began after Berlusconi's wife Veronica Lario walked out on him.

"I am Berlusconi's girlfriend. Wherever he goes I go, I follow him everywhere. Our relationship is not a mystery, even if we have tried to avoid being photographed together. In love age is not important - an extraordinary person like him could be 100 years old, it would have no effect on me, he would have still struck me," she said.

Knezevic was once linked to film director Guy Ritchie.