Low-cost carrier Ryanair has suspended sales in its package holiday division Ryanair Holidays.

The service has been suspended until the end of February.

The airline blamed “illegal screenscraping and mis-selling of Ryanair flights by the technology provider” for the decision.

The unit was only launched in launched in December.

Ryanair said in a statement: “Ryanair today confirmed it has temporarily suspended its Holidays service, and terminated its agreement with the software provider who was found to be unlawfully scraping Ryanair’s low fares.

“All existing Ryanair Holidays bookings are secure and Ryanair is currently finalising an agreement with a new software provider, who it expects to appoint shortly.

“Ryanair apologises to its customers for any inconvenience caused but re-emphasised that it will not allow any third party software provider to ‘screenscrape’ and unlawfully re-sell Ryanair’s low fares.”

Ryanair Holidays is a partnership with Spain-based tour operator Logitravel and accommodation provider World2Meet, owned by Iberostar Group.