Disreputable establishments made off limits for Secret Service

The agents have also been barred from entertaining foreigners in hotel rooms, when the president is on official visits and been told to refrain from consuming alcohol within 10 hours of reporting for duty, US media reports said.

The "enhanced standards of conduct" effective immediately also provide that all president's trips to be staffed by supervisor from the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility.

The new guidelines come within two weeks after more than two dozens secret service agents and military personnel were sent home from Cartagena, Colombia on charges of procuring prostitutes and bringing them to their hotel rooms.

Eight agents have since been dismissed since the Colombian incident, but the sex taint seems to be growing with new reports emerging that Secret Service agents visited a downtown Moscow nightclub known for raucous parties in 2000, ahead of a state visit to Russia by then-President Bill Clinton.

Wall Street Journal reported that Secret Service staff and White House advance staff preparing for Clinton's state visit to Russia attended events at the Hungry Duck nightclub.

The Hungry Duck, which opened in the mid-1990s in the centre of Moscow, featured performances by strippers and patrons, the newspaper said.

As many as 920 women supposedly once took part in a mass striptease at the Hungry Duck.

The new guidelines lay out "off-limit zones and off-limit establishments for the Secret Service personnel," and require agents to attend standard-of-conduct briefings upon entry to a country, where the US ambassador may impose "country-specific rules," Secret Service special agent Edwin Donovan said in a statement.

Agents will also be required to adhere to US law while abroad, and undergo ethics training in order to be eligible for foreign travel. PTI AKD