A 13-day-old girl may become India's first surrogacy orphan after the Japanese couple who paid for her to be conceived divorced just weeks before she was born, leaving her in legal limbo.

The baby, who has been named Manji and is being kept in hospital after falling ill, faces an uncertain future after her Indian surrogate mother and the Japanese woman who had planned to adopt her refused to take her.

Her biological father, who wants to keep the baby, has not been allowed to take her out of the country because of laws banning single men from adopting girls.

Lawyers said that the case highlighted the need for legislation to regulate surrogate pregnancies in India amid fears that the rent-a-womb industry in the country is out of control.

In November Ikufumi Yamada, the genetic father, and his then wife Yuki Yamada, 41, signed a surrogacy agreement at a clinic in Anand, a town in northern India that has become a hub for commercial surrogacy. The Yamadas divorced in June.

Mr Yamada wanted to adopt the baby and take her to Japan but may not be allowed to do so.

Lawyers said that the case was unclear because India has no laws governing child surrogacy, only guidelines.

Manji, who was conceived using the sperm of Mr Yamada and a donated egg, is being cared for in a hospital in the city of Jaipur by Mr Yamada's 70-year-old mother, who speaks no Hindi or English and is said to be distressed.

Sanjay Arya, a doctor who is monitoring the baby after she developed diarrhoea, said: “The grandmother becomes very emotional when she is told that the child cannot be taken out of India. The lawmakers will have to find some solution for this.”

Indira Jaising, the lawyer who will act on behalf of the father, told The Times that because the child is considered an Indian citizen by birth she may need to be adopted formally by Mr Yamada before her nationality could be changed to Japanese and she could leave the country. It is unknown whether this was possible, she added.

“The situation is deeply unfortunate,” Mrs Jaising said. “The child's parentage, nationality and right to a passport must be decided. There is no doubt the law should be clearer on these issues.”

Nayna Patel, a pioneer in commercial surrogacy, at whose surgery the child was conceived and born, insisted that no adoption was needed because Mr Yamada is the biological father.

The Japanese Embassy in Delhi has said, however, that an Indian court must formally give Mr Yamada, who is currently in Japan, custody of Manji before she can be issued with a Japanese passport.

The absence of legal controls, cheap medical care and a supply of cheap surrogate mothers have made India the world leader in commercial surrogacy.

Mr Yamada bought the surrogate mother of Manji a house worth 325,000 rupees (£3,960) and gave her 50,000 rupees to bear the child.

The surrogate, who has two young children of her own, was given 5,000 rupees a month for living expenses during her pregnancy, an amount equivalent to the salary of a well-paid blue-collar job.

The same surrogacy process would cost about $70,000 (£35,000) in the US and, in Britain, offering money to somebody to carry a child — or even advertising such an arrangement — is illegal.

Some Indian clinics have reported a fourfold rise in foreign clients this year compared with last, as more Westerners opted to outsource pregancies to the subcontinent.

Dr Patel's clinic usually has 30 pregnant surrogates on its books at any one time, several of whom are paid by British couples.

As the industry flourishes concerns are mounting for the welfare of the poor women who typically become surrogates and for the children they bear.

Britons have reported falling victim to conmen and blackmailers as they embark on a process where even the most scrupulous of clinics can offer, at best, a 50-50 chance of success.

Voicing concerns that the surrogacy surge is built on the economic exploitation of Indian women, officials at the Indian Women and Child Development Ministry told The Times recently that political pressure was building to curb a rent-a-womb culture and to draw up laws.

The price of life

— Surrogacy costs about 500,000 rupees (£6,000) in India, including all medical expenses and the surrogate's fee. In the US it can cost up to $70,000

— There are no official figures on the number of surrogate births in India but it is estimated that there are about 100 to 150 annually

— The number of failed surrogacy attempts is estimated to be higher than the number of successful ones

— Surrogacy and fertility treatments are becoming big business in India and the industry is worth about 20bn rupees (£250m) a year

— Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some European countries and is subject to a wide spectrum of regulation in the US, was legalised in India in 2002

— In India the surrogate mother signs away all rights to the child before it is born

— British law says that a surrogate mother who has provided the egg may claim the child as hers at any time during the first two years of the child's life

— Single women in India can act as surrogates, although they cannot use assisted reproductive therapy to become pregnant on their own

Source: Times database

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