A watchdog has heard Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey did not act dishonestly when undergoing a screening for the virus.

The Scottish medical worker, 40, was infected with Ebola while working in Sierra Leone in December 2014.

The nurse, from Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, has been accused of allowing a lower temperature to be recorded during a "chaotic" screening process on her return to Heathrow from the West African country.

A two-day hearing at the Nursing and Midwifery Council in Edinburgh began on Tuesday.

She is also accused of leaving the screening area at Heathrow without reporting her true temperature and not declaring that she had taken paracetamol

However, a representative of the council urged the panel to strike out any allegation she acted with dishonesty.

Anu Thompson told the hearing Ms Cafferkey was at that time in the early phases of an "extremely serious virus".

She said the "dishonesty test has not been met" as "her actions were not actuated by dishonesty".

Mrs Thompson continued: "It's clear that a medical expert in this field suggests that Pauline Cafferkey's ability to make decisions and reason properly were affected at the relevant time ... The mischief is that Pauline Cafferkey, realising she had an elevated temperature, allowed an incorrect temperature to be entered in the screening form and left the screening area without disclosing to anyone in authority what her true temperature was."

Ms Cafferkey was among a group of doctors and nurses returning to Heathrow after a six week deployment to Sierra Leone in 2014.

But the hearing heard that screening staff from Public Health England (PHE) at the airport "were not properly prepared to receive so many travellers from at risk countries" and this resulted in it being described as "busy, disorganised and even chaotic".

The hearing was told that a doctor took Ms Cafferkey's temperature and found it to be 38.2C, then 38.3C.

"Dr 1 says that Registrant A (someone else in the group) stated at this point that she would record the temperature as 37.2 degrees on Ms Cafferkey's screening form and then they would 'get out of here and sort it out'," Mrs Thompson told the hearing.

"Ms Cafferkey has stated she recalls the words 'let's get out of here' being used but now cannot remember who said it or who entered the temperature of 37.2C on her screening form.

"Ms Cafferkey accepts that she knew at the time that she was in the screening area with Dr 1 and Registrant A that her temperature had been measured at 38.2/38.3C.

"It is agreed that a temperature above 37.5C is an elevated temperature that requires further assessment and should be reported to a consultant."

The panel was told that, at some point after realising she had an elevated temperature, Ms Cafferkey took paracetamol.

She left the screening area but later returned to it, where - with a temperature reading of around 37.5C - she was cleared for onward travel by another doctor.

The nurse arrived in Glasgow late in the evening and awoke feeling "very unwell" the following day. She was diagnosed with Ebola the same day.

The hearing was told Ms Cafferkey had an "extremely severe" and "protracted illness" and had received psychological support in the aftermath of her recovery.

The Scot has since had two further admissions to hospital - one with a relapse of the Ebola virus and the other with chronic meningitis.

A report from a Glasgow-based doctor states: "Pauline's prognosis is uncertain. She is the only patient ever to have developed a reactivation of the Ebola virus infection ten months after the initial illness."

The hearing is expected to finish on Thursday.