Boris Johnson has denied intervening over a peerage for a Russian-born businessman after alleged security concerns were raised.
The Sunday Times claimed the security services had withdrawn their assessment that honoring Evgeny Lebedev posed a security risk after the PM’s intervention.
Mr Johnson told reporters that the article was “just plain wrong”.
But he would not say if he would meet Lord Lebedev in March 2020 to discuss it.
Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer has called on a senior parliamentary committee to investigate the allegation, saying he is “very concerned” about the case.
But Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab insisted there had been no “inappropriateness”.
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Lord Lebedev, who owns the Independent and London Evening Standard newspapers, was knighted in July 2020.
The son of Russian banker and former KGB officer Alexander Lebedev came to London at the age of eight when his father started working at the Soviet embassy.
He holds both Russian and British citizenship.
Earlier this week, Lord Lebedev published a letter to Vladimir Putin calling on the Russian President to “end this terrible conflict in Ukraine”.
He wrote: “As a citizen of Russia, I beg you to stop the Russians from killing their Ukrainian brothers and sisters.”
The Sunday Times claimed that in March 2020 the commission examining peerage appointments advised the Prime Minister against granting the newspaper owner a seat in the House of Lords for security reasons.
Mr Johnson, who ultimately decides who receives a title of peerage, is said to have responded to the advice by claiming it was “anti-Russia”.
Asked about the report on Monday, the Prime Minister said it would be “obviously exceptional” if he had intervened, “but that is not the case”.
He declined to answer questions about whether he met Lord Lebedev in 2020 to talk about the nobility title.
But he said he didn’t want the crisis in Ukraine to become a “witch hunt against every Russian in the UK,” adding: “It fits with Putin’s agenda.
“He will want to portray this as a conflict between Russia and the West.”
Lord Lebedev also told the newspaper the allegations were false.
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