Frank Sinatra was impotent and had a ''penile implant'', a new book has claimed.

The 'New York, New York' hitmaker reportedly had a device fitted to aid his bedroom skills, but it quickly failed because he tried to use it too soon.

In 'Sinatra: The Chairman', the second volume of James Kaplan's biography of the star, the author wrote: ''[In 1983, Sinatra had] been complaining, seriously and humorously, about impotence for a long time; at some point he was reportedly fitted with a penile implant. According to talk in urological circles the device had failed because Frank tried to use it too soon.''

Mia Farrow has previously hinted her son Ronan was fathered by Frank, not her former partner Woody Allen, but the book insist the claims can't be true because the crooner was incapacitated when Ronan was conceived.

According the the author, Frank was hospitalised with a severe stomach condition known as acute diverticulitis after collapsing while on stage in October 1986 and subsequently had a section of his intestine removed and a colostomy bag attached for several months.

The book notes: ''Sometime in March, Mia Farrow, then living in New York and in the midst of her 13-year relationship with Woody Allen, conceived a child.

''Mia Farrow claimed that Ronan ''might 'possibly' have been sired by Frank Sinatra who was in Hawaii and Palm Springs all the while, wearing a colostomy bag and close by his ever watchful wife [Barbara].''

And the 'My Way' hitmaker's daughter Tina is also reported to have said her father had had a vasectomy long before Ronan's 1987 conception.