The news agency said new VW boss Matthias Mueller is working on a “comprehensive" refit plan that will see owners contacted in the next few days with the work due to take place over the coming months. The news was announced at closed-door gathering of around 1,000 top managers at its Wolfsburg headquarters late on Monday.

Exact makes and models have not been announced but of the 11m vehicles that VW has admitted are fitted with the software, five million are from VW, 2.1 million Audi and 1.2 million Skoda while 1.8m are commercial vehicles. The rest have not been accounted for yet.

Previously the group has said that: "The internal evaluation revealed that approximately five million Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand vehicles are affected worldwide. Certain models and model years of these vehicles (such as the sixth generation Volkswagen Golf, the seventh generation Volkswagen Passat and the first generation Volkswagen Tiguan) are equipped exclusively with type EA189 diesel engines.

"As previously announced, all new Volkswagen Passenger Car brand vehicles that fulfill the EU6 norm valid throughout Europe are not affected. This therefore also includes the current Golf, Passat and Touran models."