THE business empire of Whyte & Mackay owner Vijay Mallya is under scrutiny from the Indian stock market watchdog.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is looking into movements in the share price of companies such as United Breweries and United Spirits during recent months.

United Spirits, which recently announced it was in talks over selling a stake to Diageo, confirmed it had received a letter from Sebi with several queries but did not specify the nature of the correspondence.

Shares in the company surged 23% in the days before the announcement of the talks and leapt a further 10% on September 25. Mr Mallya's UB Group also controls debt laden airline Kingfisher.

A source at Sebi said there was no formal investigation yet.