Toshiba and Lenovo have become the latest computer brands to recall Sony-made laptop batteries.

Lenovo said it took the decision after one of its laptops caught fire at Los Angeles Airport. Meanwhile Toshiba said it did so on the advice of Sony.

Overheat

A manufacturing fault had caused several Sony batteries to overheat, causing several laptops to catch fire and prompting one of the biggest product recalls in United States consumer history. A pickup truck in the U.S. was completely burnt-out after the owner's Dell laptop in which the Sony battery overheated, caused the laptop to catch fire and eventually igniting ammunition stored in the glove compartment.

Lenovo said it was recalling 500,000 batteries from ThinkPad laptops sold February 2005 onwards, under its own brand and the IBM brand, whose personal computer division, the China-based company bought last year. Japanese Toshiba is recalling 830,000 Dynabook, Qosmio, Satellite Portege and Tecra laptop models.

This brings the recall to a worldwide total of over seven million batteries following Dell's earlier recall of 4.1 million Sony batteries and Apple's 1.8 million.