Bates, the club's chairman, has bought out Switzerland-based firm FSF Limited through his company Outro Limited, Leeds confirmed in a statement.

Leeds say they hope the move will bring an end to "scaremongering" about the club's ownership and "delivers the transparency sought".

An inquiry into football governance by a committee of MPs has put Leeds' ownership under the spotlight and the Premier League had said they would require full disclosure of the shareholders of the three offshore trusts that had owned FSF Limited.

Leeds said no individual owned more than 10% of any of those trusts, which meant they did not have to provide further details to the Football League and FA under their ownership disclosure rules.

But the writing was on the wall after the culture, media and sport committee made the Leeds issue one of the major points of investigation in their inquiry.

What remains unknown is which individuals have had stakes in Leeds during the last six years since Bates took over as chairman in 2005, a period during which they went into administration in 2007.

Leeds said in a statement: "The scaremongering arising out of the football governance inquiry has not been helpful and, whilst the board were always confident that there were no issues, recognise the concern the unknown outcome of any Premier League questions may have on our members.

"To address this issue and in the hope that this brings an end to the speculation, the chairman, Ken Bates, has completed the purchase of FSF Limited for an undisclosed sum. FSF Limited is now owned by Outro Limited which is wholly owned by Ken Bates.

"This change in ownership structure makes Ken Bates the controlling shareholder of Leeds United and delivers the transparency sought."

The statement claimed there had been a "political obsession" over Leeds' ownership, but Damian Collins MP, a member of the select committee, welcomed the announcement.

Collins told Press Association Sport: "If our inquiry has had something to do with the new clarity of who owns Leeds then I am very pleased.

"It was unacceptable to have a football club whose fans did not know who the owners were. I could not see how the FA could ensure there were no conflicts of interests or issues of dual ownership if they did not know who the principle investors were."

In March, Leeds chief executive Shaun Harvey gave evidence to the inquiry and told MPs the club's owners were a holding company called FSF Limited based in the West Indian island of Nevis, owned by three discretionary trusts.

The owners of those trusts were unknown, he said, but that they had appointed Patrick Murrin and Peter Boatman to run the club and they had asked Bates to be chairman.

Harvey said neither he, nor to his knowledge Bates, knew who the shareholders of the trusts were.