The International Olympic Committe asked China to promise not to delay transmissions of the Beijing games, after France raised concerns about Chinese television’s censoring of Tibet protests at the torch-lighting ceremony in Greece this week.

French TV executives have asked the European Broadcasting Union to extract guarantees from Beijing that transmissions will be live and uninterrupted even if protests take place.

Neither the IOC nor the EBU said they had any grounds to believe Beijing would renege on pledges for live transmission made two years ago and reaffirmed in January.

But the fact that the matter is being raised again with Beijing underlines the IOC’s nervousness about relations with Chinese authorities and the difficulty of quelling European concerns.

The French stance on events in Tibet took a fresh turn yesterday. Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, said he would consult European Union leaders on a possible boycott of the opening ceremony. “At the time of the Olympics, I will be in the presidency of the European Union, so I have to sound out and consult my fellow members to see whether or not we should boycott,” he said.

Broadcasts of the torch ceremony were suspended after a disruption by media rights protesters based in France. That led to calls for a French boycott of coverage of the games if transmissions were censored.

The lighting of the Olympic torch in Olympia on Monday was disrupted when members of Reporters Without Borders, a French-based media rights group, broke through security to unfurl a protest banner as Liu Qi, president of the Beijing games organising committee (Bocog), addressed the ceremony.

The suspension of broadcasts of the torch-lighting ceremony led Daniel Bilalian, director of sports at France Televisions, to raise the prospect of French broadcasters boycotting Olympics coverage if the host broadcaster censored live games coverage.

International rights-holders will receive radio and TV feeds from Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, a joint venture between the Beijing organising committee and Olympic Broadcasting Services, a subsidiary of the IOC.

Manolo Romero, OBS chief executive, has been in Beijing for talks with the committee. “No doubt they will be asking for clarification on things such as the broadcasting of the torch ceremony and about delays in transmission,” the IOC said.

Jean Revellion, the EBU’s director-general, said worries about delayed transmission had been raised by EBU members before and he expected them to do so again, with France having already done so. “We will get new guarantees because members will ask us to be absolutely sure about this,” Mr Reveillon said.

He expected new talks with Bocog about live transmission of all games events, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies.