One of London’s most expensive hotels is facing an embarrassing multimillion-dollar compensation claim after an American lawyer and his wife were attacked by bedbugs during a recent stay.

Sidney Bluming, a prominent New York celebrity lawyer, and his wife, Cynthia, are suing the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, owner of the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, after staying at the fashionable London hotel last May.

According to the lawsuit, which is seeking several million dollars in damages, the Blumings were bitten hundreds of times during their five-night stay leaving their skin red, swollen and itchy.

A spokesman for Mr Bluming, whose clients include Elizabeth Taylor and Claudia Schiffer, said: "People associate bed bugs with more of a lower-end class of hotel. Clearly that's not the case here; the Mandarin is as premier and luxurious as any hotel could make themselves out to be."

Nestled between Harvey Nichols and Hyde Park, the Mandarin Oriental claims to occupy "one of the most prestigious addresses" in London and offer "opulent" rooms.

According to the hotel’s website, such opulence starts at £464 per night, rising to £934 per night for a suite overlooking Knightsbridge.

A spokeswoman for the hotel confirmed that there had been "a regrettable but isolated incident of infestation within one guest room."

"There have been no subsequent incidents and the matter has been referred to our insurers," she added.

According to the lawsuit, the bedbugs nested in the Blumings' clothes and luggage, travelling back with them to New York where the attacks continued until they fumigated their apartment and threw away clothes, bed sheets and other personal items.

They claim they were humiliated by the ugly red marks the bites left on their skin and were haunted by fears of further bites, causing them to wake up in the middle of the night with real or imagined itching.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan last month, accuses the hotel group of fraud, deceptive trade practice, negligence, recklessness, intentional infliction of emotional distress and nuisance.

The Blumings are not the first people to sue a prominent hotel group over unwelcome bed guests. Last week Alison Trainer, an American opera singer, sued Hilton Hotels for unspecified damages claiming that she was bitten by bedbugs at one of its hotels in Arizona.

"She looks like a piece of wood that has been attacked by termites," Ms Trainer’s lawyer said after her six-night stay.

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