Disgraced peer Jeffrey Archer is promoting his latest novel from jail.

It emerged yesterday that the former Tory party chairman gave an interview to USA Today from the Hollesley Bay open prison in Suffolk, after the newspaper passed a list of questions to him via his agent.

A Prison Service spokesman said: ''The governor is aware of the article in USA Today and will be examining whether or not this contravenes prison rules.''

Sons of Fortune, his eleventh novel, is already on best-seller lists in Britain and the US after being published last month.

Archer told the newspaper that he has no computer access in prison and handwrites everything.

He provides his fellow inmates, who call him Jeffrey, with advice on literary and political matters rather than offering them legal help. He said he works out at the prison gym twice a week and talks to his wife Mary ''every day''.

However, he responded to most of the questions about life in jail by urging people to read his controversial book, A Prison Diary, which is not due out in the US until August.

Last September, the millionaire novelist got into trouble for using a home visit to attend a champagne party held by Gillian Shephard, a former Tory party colleague.

Days later, a prison officer resigned and an off-duty policewoman was left facing a professional standards investigation after it emerged they had also lunched with Archer while he was on day release, this time at an Italian restaurant.