David Cameron has pledged to overrule the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and investigate allegations of civilian fatalities from UK air strikes in Iraq.

The Prime Minister said that he would look at the claims, first reported by The Sunday Herald, under questioning from SNP MP Angus MacNeil.

The MoD has previously refused to look into the accusations of up to 81 civilian casualties, from independent monitoring group Airwars, saying that it would only consider reports of deaths on the ground from UK military personnel or friendly “local forces”.

Mr MacNeil denounced that position as a "strange set of affairs".

Despite his pledge, Mr Cameron appeared to down play down the potential veracity of the allegations.

He told MPs on the Liaison Committee that at the time the Commons debated extending airstrikes into Syria last month, "after all that action by the RAF... we did not believe that there had been any civilian casualties in Iraq".

But he added that he would "look at" the allegations of between 72 and 81 civilian deaths in Iraq linked to British military strikes.

Mr Cameron also pledged to consider relaxing restrictions to allow individuals to take Syrian refugees into their own homes.

High-profile figures including Nicola Sturgeon and former Labour leadership contender Yvette Cooper have offered shelter to those fleeing the civil war.

Meanwhile, an SNP MP called on the RAF's precision bombing skills to be used to drop food to Syrian civilians starving in besieged areas.

Patrick Grady, the SNP's international development spokesman, said that Scots had been "horrified" by the stories coming out of the town of Madaya in recent days.

Mr Cameron also hinted that he would look again at the rules on police bail in England after an Islamic State (IS) video suspect Abu Rumaysah was allowed to flee the country.

During an often heated session in front of MPs, in which he banged the table in front of him with his fist more than once, Mr Cameron also faced accusations that he was hampering the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), by not allowing members to scrutinise military action.

The Prime Minister told MPs that the ISC had been given access to the intelligence seen by ministers.

But he added that it was "not the Intelligence and Defence Committee".

Afterwards Labour's Harriet Harman, the chair of parliament'Westminster's Joint Committee on Human Rights, said: “The PM sought to give the impression today that he is allowing the ISC to scrutinise the targeted killing of Reyaad Khan in Syria in August.

"But under questioning from the committee chairmanAndrew Tyrie he was forced to admit he is not allowing this scrutiny."

She added: "It’s not acceptable that he is clearly frustrating the scrutiny work of the ISC, who he appointed and who are all security cleared.”

During the session, Mr Cameron also told MPs that tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia would mean that peace talks to bring the Syrian civil war to an end would be "incredibly difficult".

He also rejected suggestions that the West had to choose between the Syrian dictator President Bashar Assad and IS.

He said that Western powers had to look for a third way, as he accused Assad of using starvation as a "weapon of war".

US Secretary of State John Kerry hopes rebels will sit round a table with representatives of Assad's regime later this month in the hopes of agreeing a ceasefire.

The Prime Minister also confirmed that he intends to make a "comprehensive Gulf trip at some stage in the coming months".

A Commons vote midway through saw the 90-minute session cut to an hour and 13 minutes, for which the Conservative leader appeared to be grateful.

Earlier on his way in to be grilled by MPs he could clearly be heard saying that he was "not bad", adding: "I've got an hour and a half of this. I will be better after that."