The Football Association last night confirmed it is investigating allegations of match-fixing surrounding the Championship match between Norwich City and Derby County earlier this month.

Derby won 2-1 at Carrow Road, but the game was reportedly the subject of irregular betting patterns on gambling websites based in Asia.

The FA was given documentation last Friday of an undisclosed nature relating to the betting patterns on the October 4 match, and said at the weekend it would “consider any evidence which is brought to our attention”.

Football's governing body did not, at that time, make public any details of the game, but it was forced to make public that information yesterday after two MPs, both Norwich fans, tabled questions in Parliament about the state of the inquiry.

By last night, however, the FA had yet to involve either Norwich or Derby in the investigation, nor had it spoken to British-based spread betting company Spreadex, whose traders had played a role in the betting patterns becoming public knowledge.

Spreadex observed no irregular trades by its own customers on the match but did so while monitoring the trading patterns of Asian competitors within the industry.

FA sources say that until it has gathered evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to believe the Norwich-Derby game is any more likely to have been fixed than any other.

A source confirmed the match was being scrutinised only after the intervention of Ian Gibson, MP for Norwich North, and Norman Lamp, MP for Norfolk North, who were both at the game. After the pair had called on the FA to make an “urgent statement” on the subject, the FA issued a statement saying: “The FA can confirm that it is investigating an allegation regarding the match between Norwich City and Derby County on 4 October.

“We are looking into whether there is any substance to this allegation. There is no fixed timescale to our inquiries and there will be no further comment at this time.”

In the match in question, Derby took a first-half lead through a Rob Hulse header.

Norwich equalised with a penalty early in the second half after Derby's goalkeeper, the Northern Ireland international Roy Carroll, was adjudged to have caught Leroy Lita in the head with his foot in the area.

Sammy Clingan, another Northern Ireland player, scored the spot-kick.

Derby's winner was scored by Nathan Ellington after a mix-up in the Norwich defence led to the home goalkeeper David Marshall rushing from his area to leave the goal exposed.

The FA's chairman Lord Triesman insists a “thorough” investigation is under way.”

“We're gathering the information and doing it very thoroughly — and thoroughness doesn't mean doing that in a very short time and failing to be thorough. We'll see what information there is and make an assessment at that point. The last thing we need is guesswork.”

Industry sources at major UK-based firms told The Independent they had yet to be asked if they had seen irregular betting on the game. As it happens, neither Spreadex nor Betfair recorded any oddities at all in bets wagered on the game.