Fylingdales is part of the "Star Wars" defence system

The role of Fylingdales on the North York Moors is being expanded as part of the United States' missile defence system.

A BBC1 television programme to be shown in Yorkshire on Monday reveals there is concern about an almost identical base on Cape Cod.

A US Air Force scientist Dr Richard Albanese tells the programme that radiation from the radar system may have carcinogenic properties.

Young women

Dr Albanese was a member of the medical team that first identified agent orange - a defoliant used during the Vietnam war - as the cause of unexplained cancers in American veterans.

He is now running the Cape Cod tests, which were ordered after local doctors identified raised levels of breast and lung cancer in young women near the Sagamore base 70 miles from Boston.

Emissions from Sagamore and at Fylingdales are well within legal limits.

But some researchers are now questioning whether the complex waves of electro-magnetic radiation should be subject to much tighter regulation.

Cancer cluster

Dr Albanese said: "Technology seems to lead our medical understanding by somewhere between 10 and 20 years in almost every incident I have worked on."

There is no evidence of a cancer cluster in the Fylingdales area.

But the Yorkshire Cancer Register has confirmed that no research has yet been done near the base.

Sophie Hull's report can been seen on Inside Out on BBC1 Leeds at 1930 BST on Monday.