Human rights campaigners have warned Glasgow "nodded through" deals putting teachers controlled by China's ruling regime in city classrooms.

Communist rulers in Beijing increasingly use funding for language lessons to boost their image overseas - but have admitted they have strict rules on what is said about them.

Glasgow has had a so-called Confucius Classroom hub at Hillhead High since 2009 - with money from both the Scottish and Chinese governments.

Now Free Tibet - a campaign group deeply sceptical about China's motives in funding such schemes - has warned Glasgow's unquestioning attitudes to the scheme.

The group, which campaigns for the Himalayan nation currently occupied by China, has sympathy with schools and supports the learning of Chinese.

Its director, Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren, said: "Free Tibet isn't out to condemn educators doing their best to provide opportunities for their pupils in a tough economic climate.

"But a secondary school pupil who studies China and is taught nothing about its occupation of Tibet, its denial of freedom to its own citizens and its appalling human rights record is receiving propaganda instead of education.

"If the price of Chinese-language teaching is a whitewash of China's injustices, then too high a price is being paid."

Free Tibet will now write to the council to volunteer to go in to classrooms to redress what it sees as a lack of balance in Chinese-funding teaching.

Ms Byrne-Rosengren added: "Instead of engaging in a vigorous public debate about the suitability of allowing an authoritarian regime to effectively operate inside its schools, the council has nodded through the Confucius Classroom programme.

"Now is the time for the community to have that debate and hold its council to account. Now is also the time to question whether it's appropriate for Glasgow council to have a financial relationship with the government of China at all."

Chinese funding and control over Confucius Classrooms and their equivalent in Universities - Confucius Institutes - has become a major international talking point.

Glasgow's hub is one of 16 in Scotland and it is far from alone in not debating the issue.

Academics and educators have been split on the issue with some cities - such as Toronto in Canada - tearing up deals amid concerns over propaganda.

The Chinese body which funds the schemes is open that it expects its teachers to follow official lines on issues like Tibet.

One of Scotland's leading language teaching experts, Dan Tierney of Strathclyde University, recently branded Chinese teaching as "less relevant" than basic European languages such as Spanish and German.

However, several students have seen their lives transformed by access to Chinese through the institutes or classrooms.

A council spokeswoman said: Glasgow's Confucius classroom is about the young people being given the opportunity to learn another language. We will respond to the organisation when we receive the letter."