Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Prince Harry was on a private break with friends over the weekend 
 
 St James's Palace has confirmed it contacted the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) over the possible use of naked photos of Prince Harry. 
 
 The palace had heard a number of UK newspapers were considering using them, a spokesman said. Not one has done so. 
 
 It believed publication of the photos - taken in a Las Vegas hotel room - would constitute an invasion of privacy. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Met Police have said they will not discuss "matters of protection" after concerns were raised. 
 
 Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe was asked on Wednesday about the images and the role of the prince's protection officers - which are provided by the Met - and said: "Protection officers are there to protect him for security reasons, they are not there to regulate his life." 
 
 'Private hotel' 
 
 Prince Harry, 27, is believed to be back in the UK after pictures of him and a young woman naked in a Las Vegas hotel room appeared on US gossip website TMZ. 
 
 The photos are believed to have been taken on a camera phone last Friday when the prince was on a private weekend break with friends. 
 
 St James's Palace confirmed the prince is in the photos and that it contacted the PCC on Wednesday because it had concerns about his privacy being intruded upon, in breach of the editors' code of practice. 
 
 A PCC spokesman said there was no formal complaint but confirmed St James's Palace contacted the regulatory body so it could raise concerns with editors. 
 
 "They thought Prince Harry had a reasonable right to privacy, being in a private hotel," the spokesman said. 
 
 TMZ reported Harry had been pictured in a group playing "strip billiards". 
 
 The pictures have been picked up by much of the US media but no British newspaper has published them, although they have appeared on a political blog in the UK and the Sun mocked up an image of one of them on its front page. 
 
 On Wednesday evening they appeared on Scottish media and marketing website, the Drum, alongside an opinion piece from the editor saying "decisions not to publish, despite the self-evident news value, are always bad decisions". 
 
 Press 'neutered' 
 
 One ex-editor said the decision by UK newspapers not to use the photos showed the Leveson Inquiry had "neutered" the press. 
 
 The inquiry, which is looking at press standards and the relationship between journalists and those in power, was launched last year in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World. 
 
 Former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis told the BBC that before the Leveson Inquiry he would have published the pictures because it was in the public interest, but the inquiry had had an adverse effect on the press. 
 
 Analysis British papers may not have printed the pictures of Prince Harry, but they have reported the furore in full detail - and told readers where they can find the photos, which first surfaced on the TMZ entertainment website in the US. In the past, some papers would have happily countered this with claims that the story was in the public interest, pointing out the risk posed to the prince's security. But for the moment, newspapers are playing safe, waiting for Leveson. That has not stopped them discussing the full implications of Prince Harry's behaviour. It's a salutory reminder of the difficulty for Lord Justice Leveson in devising a tighter form of press regulation for the UK in a world where social media and the internet respect no boundaries. Whatever the Leveson Report says when it is published this autumn, it is certain to spark a new round of arguments about what sort of a press - and regulation - the UK wants. 
 
 "He is third in line to the throne, he's been on the world stage for weeks and weeks, he is supposedly surrounded by police security officers," he said. 
 
 But media lawyer Mark Stephens said editors realised they had to comply with the wishes of St James's Palace. 
 
 "It's because they were asked not to by the PCC and they accepted it was probably the better way to go," he said. 
 
 He added that a number of high profile court cases involving celebrities had changed the way the press handle privacy. 
 
 Media lawyer Callum Galbraith said the press would have weighed up the prince's privacy rights, against the media's right to publish, before using the pictures. 
 
 Mr Galbraith said: "The photos appear to have been taken in the most private of circumstances. Naked photos are, of course, inherently private. 
 
 "In addition, it is likely that the prince did not consent to the taking of photos. 
 
 "The suggestion that the Leveson Inquiry may be responsible for the UK media not publishing these photos is unfair and inaccurate. The media would always be cautious of such photos." 
 
 Former royal protection officer Ken Wharfe described the incident as a setback for the prince, undermining the charitable work and his military career. 
 
 BBC media correspondent Torin Douglas said it was a "reminder of the difficulty for Lord Justice Leveson in devising a tighter form of press regulation for the UK, in a world where social media and the internet respect no boundaries". 
 
 Harry's antics: Reaction elsewhere on the web 
 
 "There has never been a better time for the third in line to the throne to be photographed naked, with naked company, in a Las Vegas hotel room," said a Times leader, pointing out that Harry's recent "triumphant" Caribbean tour and "dutiful but joyful turn" at the Olympic Games earned him "a special place in the nation's heart". 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Neil Wallis: "[In the] post-Leveson era newspaper editors are simply scared of their own shadow" 
 
 But he will need to tread carefully in the future. "It is a testament to his sheer likeability that Britain will most likely greet his latest, literal, revelations with a grin and an indulgent shrug. If he's still naked at 50, things may be different." 
 
 The Daily Mirror's Alison Phillips wrote: "Unlike the royal stuffed shirts, he seems genuine and a bit of a laugh. Which is why it was so disappointing when his aides called in lawyers to ban the pictures from UK newspapers - even though they're being published in Ireland." 
 
 Prince Harry "wasn't hurting anyone", she said, and he had "done us proud recently". Perhaps his aides needed to "follow his example and just chill out". 
 
 But for the Daily Mail's Amanda Platell, his recent achievements and image clean-up have made the Las Vegas scenes "so disappointing and genuinely shocking". 
 
 The prince should have known better, she said, and questioned why no courtier or police protection officer stepped in. ||||| Rupert Murdoch has defended the decision of the Sun to publish pictures of a naked Prince Harry in Las Vegas, saying it was necessary to make a point about the lack of "free press" in Britain. 
 
 His comments were made on Twitter, as the row over the pictures, published on Friday, continued to escalate with an intervention from the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who said the Sun was wrong to publish. 
 
 Murdoch, however, believes the British blackout was a mistake in light of widespread availability of the images on the internet and in international newspapers and told his Twitter followers the paper had to take a stance. 
 
 Showing no signs of retreating from a dust-up with regulators in Britain, the media mogul tweeted : "Needed to demonstrate no such thing as free press in the UK. Internet makes mockery of these issues. 1st amendment please." 
 
 But he later urged people to give Prince Harry "a break" over his antics in Las Vegas. "Prince Harry. Give him a break. He may be on the public payroll one way or another, but the public loves him, even to enjoy Las Vegas." 
 
 Murdoch made his stance public after more than 850 complaints were made to the Press Complaints Commission on Friday about an alleged invasion of privacy. 
 
 Publication of the images will be seen as a bid to re-establish the Sun's brand as a brash paper which will dare to take on the establishment despite the threat of statutory regulation from the Leveson inquiry into press ethics. 
 
 The Sun's decision to publish was widely seen as a defiant act, coming just 48 hours after Prince Charles's personal solicitors, Harbottle & Lewis, issued a letter to newspapers warning them there was no justification for publication in English law. 
 
 Initially the paper had complied with Prince Charles's wishes and on Thursday it got its features picture editor and an intern to strip off and pose in a mocked-up photo of the prince and the unknown woman with him in the Las Vegas hotel room. 
 
 On Friday it did an about-turn, claiming the fact that the pictures were widely available on the internet made a mockery of British papers.It claimed the Palace was trying to "muzzle" the British press and there was a "clear public interest" in publishing the photographs "in order for the debate around them to be fully informed". 
 
 Hunt said he did not believe the Sun was acting in the public interest but said it wasn't his place to tell editors what to do. Speaking to BBC News, he said: "Personally I cannot see what the public interest was in publishing those. 
 
 "But we have a free press and I don't think it is right for politicians to tell newspaper editors what they can and cannot publish. That must be a matter for the newspaper editors. 
 
 "I just hope that people won't remember this, but they will remember the amazing good work that Prince Harry has done." 
 
 He added: "We can agree with what someone like Mr Murdoch does or you can disagree with it. But in the end it is not for politicians to tell editors what to publish. As I understand it even Buckingham Palace have said that editors have a right to publish what they want to and that is a matter for editors." 
 
 The publication comes at a sensitive time, ahead of what is expected to be a highly critical report by Lord Justice Leveson into press ethics following the public inquiry which was launched following the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's now defunct News of the World. 
 
 Journalists on the Sun and other tabloids believe Leveson has already had a taming effect on the British media and say if the News of the World was still around it would have served up as many titillating pictures of Harry as possible for Sunday breakfasts. 
 
 News International has refused to comment on the speculation that Murdoch personally sanctioned publication but insiders say executives wanted to fire a warning shot across Leveson's bows. 
 
 One executive said if it hadn't published the photos, the "line in the sand would be drawn in the wrong place" in terms of the boundaries of privacy. 
 
 Sources at the Leveson inquiry say Lord Justice Leveson will have noted the issues surrounding publication but it was "unlikely" that the appeals court judge would be summoning anyone from the paper to explain themselves. 
 
 There has been mixed reaction to the publication of the pictures – the Daily Mail published an editorial in full support of the paper even though it decided against publication itself. 
 
 However, media lawyers are less convinced. Christopher Hutchings of Hamlins law firm said the Sun's decision was commercially motivated. "It has calculated that the risk of legal action and financial penalties is outweighed by the increase in circulation which will be generated by publication," he said. 
 
 Louise Mensch, the soon-to-quit Tory MP and a supporter of Rupert Murdoch, has said the publication was in the public interest as Prince Harry receives money from the civil list and his royal protection squad are funded by the taxpayer. 
 
 Opposing publication, Lord Prescott attacked the Sun for publishing the pictures, saying it proved that self-regulation of the press is dead. ||||| FILE- Britain's Prince Harry watches track cycling during the 2012 Summer Olympics, in this file photo dated Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012, in London. Nude photographs of Prince Harry in a Las Vegas, USA, hotel... (Associated Press) 
 
 A prominent British public relations guru said Friday he'd been approached by two women who claimed to have more material on Prince Harry, raising the possibility that the world may soon be seeing more compromising images of the British royal. 
 
 Earlier this week, celebrity gossip website TMZ published photos of Harry romping in the nude during a party at his Las Vegas hotel suite. Many Britons have laughed off the 27-year-old prince's hijinks, but questions have been raised about his publicly-funded security detail. 
 
 In a telephone interview, publicist Max Clifford said he had been called by two American women who claim they were in the prince's hotel room in the U.S. last week. Clifford, a savvy operator famous for negotiating kiss-and-tell interviews, said the women "said they had lots of interesting things: pictures, video, that kind of thing." 
 
 He said he turned them down. 
 
 "I couldn't justify this," he said. "It's an infringement of his privacy. That's why I said no." 
 
 On Thursday, TMZ claimed that "several girls" had taken pictures at the party using their cellphones as the party got started and that "more photos were taken" after the clothes came off. Neither TMZ nor Clifford has made clear whether they believe the unreleased photographs show the prince in the nude. 
 
 British publications have largely steered clear of the photographs, with the prominent exception of Rupert Murdoch's The Sun tabloid, which became the first paper to splash the pictures across its front page on Friday with the words: "HEIR IT IS!" and marketing the grainy photograph as a "souvenir printed edition." 
 
 The paper said it had defied the wishes of the royal family because there was a public interest in knowing what the prince, who represented the queen at the 2012 Olympic Games and is heavily involved in charity work, got up to while abroad. 
 
 Privacy lawyer Chris Hutchings said that the paper's public interest argument could have traction. 
 
 "The public interest argument is on the basis that Prince Harry represents this country around the world and the photos bring into question his suitability to act as a British ambassador," Hutchings said, although he added: "The Sun have taken a calculated risk in publishing the photos given their inherently private nature." 
 
 As of Friday, the palace hasn't made any official complaint.
– Despite the fact that anyone from the UK could have gone to TMZ.com and seen the naked pictures of Prince Harry, the snaps were kept off British media websites and newspapers—until now. The Sun went ahead and published the photos, even though the royal family's lawyers specifically asked it not to. The paper likes Harry and "is NOT making any moral judgment" about his behavior, it explains. It simply believes "Sun readers have a right to see them." Why? Because the photos have sparked a debate about Harry's lifestyle, considering he officially represents Britain, and thus any Brits without Internet access could not fully take part in that conversation. "There is a clear public interest in publishing the Harry pictures, in order for the debate around them to be fully informed." More on Harry: The prince was pictured hugging an also-naked woman … because he's so chivalrous. "He hugged her to cover her up. He went over to be the gentleman and said, 'I’ll shield you. I’ll protect you. I won’t let them see you,'" says a witness, adding, "She seemed to like that very much." We bet. Not surprisingly, Playgirl has now come a-knocking. The magazine wants Harry to pose for a centerfold, and though the publisher acknowledges that there's no way the prince would agree, he tells E!, "I think a million dollars is not out of the question." Harry might need to learn a little something about people with cameras … and Facebook. Before his trip to Vegas, the prince went to a private island for yet more partying, and pictures of the alcohol-fueled weekend were posted on the Facebook page of one of Harry's friends. Unfortunately, that Facebook page was not private—leading the Telegraph to publish the pictures, including one that appears to show Harry passed out in the sand. And there may be more pictures coming. A PR guru tells the AP two women, who claim to have been inside Harry's hotel room, approached him to sell more pictures and video of the prince. Though the PR guy didn't bite, he bets someone else will.