TIME OUT, the international listings guide, is urging the Office of Fair Trading to launch an investigation into the BBC’s acquisition of the travel-guide company Lonely Planet.

It has written to the OFT, claiming the transaction breaches the BBC’s fair-trading policy and competition law.

In the letter, seen by The Sunday Times, Time Out founder Tony Elliott says he fears that the BBC will provide Lonely Planet with “an inexhaustible fund of factual, technical and editorial information and expertise quite beyond the resources of any privately funded organisation such as Time Out”.

BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s money-making arm, acquired 75% of Lonely Planet from founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler for £75m in October. Aside from publishing, Worldwide boss John Smith wants to expand its online service to create another community website to sit next to the BBC’s motoring and environmental portals.

Lonely Planet publishes more than 500 travel-related titles, including guide books and phrase books. Its website has 4m users.

Time Out is angry at the lack of detail over how Lonely Planet will trade with the BBC, which is supposed to be at arm’s length and under fair-pricing controls.

The letter adds: “The BBC’s Fair Trading Guidelines require all transactions . . . to be based on formal agreements which must be transparent. However, these are not available and from the announcements at the time of the acquisition apparently none are contemplated.”

In direct competition with Lonely Planet, Time Out publishes travel guides covering 50 cities and destinations. Its website has 1.4m monthly users.

“BBC Worldwide, from a lot of people’s point of view, is out of control,” said Elliott. “Somebody needs to really have a close look at it and define what it really should be doing.”

The complaint comes a week after the tax-payer-funded BBC was censured by the BBC Trust for overspending on its bbc.co.uk service by £36m last year.

Penguin, owner of the Rough Guide travel series, is also frustrated. It requested further details from the BBC Trust last October, under the Freedom of Information Act, on how the Lonely Planet deal was endorsed and how the company would operate in future.

After receiving nothing, it is considering what to do next - including a possible complaint to the Information Commissioner. Penguin is in a tricky position because it has a joint venture with the BBC to produce children’s books, including In The Night Garden and Doctor Who.

Under Smith, BBC Worldwide has trebled profits to £111m in three years. He has warned that this year’s profits, due for release later this month, will be lower because of a large investment in overseas television channels and the internet.

Worldwide has been given licence to expand its activities and has been taking stakes in TV production companies. Because its borrowing headroom is capped at £350m, Smith is considering teaming up with private-equity groups to fund future deals.

Meanwhile, Elliott is seeking third-party funding for Time Out to help it expand further online. It had discussed a tie-up with the BBC in the past, but talks ended when the corporation acquired the Lonely Planet.

BBC Trust minutes show its finance and strategy committee gave a preliminary recommendation to the Lonely Planet takeover in July, subject to “further work to demonstrate the proposal’s fit with the BBC’s public purposes”. It was rubber-stamped in September.

“The Trust is committed to being as open and transparent as it can,” the BBC said.

The OFT will consider whether to launch a probe before commenting publicly.

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