Argentine media have quoted the pope, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, as telling reporters in 2011 that the Falklands are “ours”.

“I don’t agree with him, respectfully, obviously,” Cameron told reporters in Brussels, pointing to a referendum this month in which 99.8 percent of the islands’ inhabitants voted in favour of remaining British.

“There was a pretty extraordinarily clear referendum in the Falkland Islands and I think that is a message to everyone in the world that the people of these islands have chosen very clearly the future they want,” Cameron said.

“The white smoke over the Falklands was pretty clear,” he added.

The sparsely populated South Atlantic archipelago triggered a war between Britain and Argentina in 1982.