Toyota's handling of a dangerous gas pedal defect came under fresh scrutiny on Feb. 8 after the group said it had fixed the flaw for some cars in Europe last year but initially decided against a global recall.

Toyota's woes are set to deepen this week when the world's largest auto maker is expected to pull as many as 300,000 Prius hybrid vehicles because of a separate issue with the braking system.

The brake trouble comes on top of recalls of more than eight million vehicles worldwide due to sticking accelerator pedals that have severely tarnished the company's giant's reputation for reliability.

The company, whose brand has long been synonymous with safety and quality, faces a class-action lawsuit on behalf of owners in the United States alleging that it hid problems that have led to the rash of recalls.

And Toyota's North America president, Yoshimi Inaba, is set to testify at a U.S. congressional hearing on Feb. 10 as part of a wider probe by lawmakers.

Toyota has denied it was slow to respond to the unintended acceleration issue but faces new questions about its handling of the episode, after it emerged that the company acted on the problem in Europe about six months ago.

"We did fix this in August last year (in Europe) after first hearing about the issue at the end of 2008," said Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco. But it was initially thought that the problem only affected European right-hand drive vehicles, sold mainly in Britain and Ireland, he said.

The trouble was attributed to the car heater blowing hot air on the gas pedal, causing condensation to build up inside and result in sticking, but was not thought to occur in left-hand drive models, he said. Toyota officials could not immediately confirm whether any action was taken at that point for vehicles already on the road in Europe.

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