"We are faced with people who want to choose a child like they choose the colour of their house," he told La7 television.

Surrogacy is a hot topic in Italy at present after Milan was forced to stop a procedure it had used to register both members of a same-sex couple as the parents of a child, after the prefect's department warned it was illegal following consultations with the interior ministry.

The procedure was based on the transcription into the Milan civil register of foreign birth certificates of children conceived by surrogacy, which is illegal in Italy, or assisted fertility, which is only allowed for heterosexual couples in that country.

A major rally took place in Milan on Saturday to protest against transcriptions of birth certifications in such cases being stopped and to defend the rights of same-sex-parent families.

The right-wing FdI, however, wants to further clamp down on surrogacy and has presented a bill in the Lower House for it to become a "universal crime".

This would mean it would be possible to prosecute Italians who have children via surrogacy abroad, even when the procedure is legal in the country it takes place in.

Furthermore, last week the ruling right-wing majority was decisive as a Senate committee voted to reject an EU plan for the rights of same-sex parents to be recognised throughout the bloc.

The debate was already inflamed after another FDI MP, Fabio Rampelli said on Saturday that some gay people were passing themselves off as parents.

"If two people of the same sex request that a child they are passing off as theirs be registered in the civic register, it means that they have done surrogacy outside the national borders," Rampelli told La7 television.

Equal Opportunities and Family Minister Eugenia Roccella said it was false to argue that the children of same-sex parents were getting second-tier treatment in Italy.

"There is no denial of children's rights," Roccella told Rai television on Sunday.

"They all have the same rights in Italy".

She added that, while she did not agree with the words Rampelli had used, the concept was correct.

"You have to declare a series of things at the civil registry and, if you say that two fathers are both the parents, you are saying something that is not true," Roccella said, adding that she considered surrogacy to be a "market of children".

Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein attended Saturday's rally in Milan and accused the government of being cruel to the children of same-sex couples.

Schlein said the PD was already at work to present a bill in parliament for the rights of same-sex parents to be recognizsd in Italy.

ANSA