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Top flight teams have criticised the UCI after being made to pay a contribution to their biological passport fees in full to avoid a ban for this weekend's Paris-Nice race.

Five of the 18 ProTour teams were told to settle half of their 120,000 euro fee towards the passport used to detect doping by the end of business on Friday and they all did.

"Cofidis and Quick Step have paid their fees to the UCI," the UCI said in a statement. Bbox Bouygues Telecom and Caisse d'Epargne said they had also settled.

"Silence-Lotto's situation has been settled, they have paid," UCI president Pat McQuaid told Reuters.

But anger was growing within the teams, who said they had arranged instalments to pay and were caught off guard by a letter from McQuaid saying they would not take part in Paris-Nice unless they had paid their contribution.

"This was a threat, pure and simple. We paid but all teams were with their backs to the wall," Francis Lafargue, head of communications at Caisse d'Epargne, told Reuters.

"We had already paid 30,000 euros, just like last year when we paid in four instalments. We have been blackmailed."

Cofidis manager Eric Boyer said: "It is deplorable. Race organisers have not paid anything in 18 months. As for us, we pay and we are threatened."

"The money will be wired tonight, it is a huge mistake. We had agreed months ago to pay by instalments. This was purely a threat, it's unfair as we all back the biological passport," Bbox Bouygues Telecom manager Jean-Rene Bernaudeau told Reuters.

Quick Step manager Patrick Lefevere said in a statement: "The UCI did not accept our request, and they ordered the team to pay 60,000 euros or risk being excluded from the Paris-Nice".

"Thus we have decided (to make) the full and total payment today for the Biological Passport, paying an additional 90,000 (making a total of 120,000) to avoid speculation about the team and to show once more that it wasn't a question of economics but a point of principle, which evidently was not well received."

Paris-Nice race director Christian Prudhomme told Reuters: "We were very surprised but the most important thing for us is that everything seems to (be getting) back in order".

In October 2007, the UCI and the WADA announced they would collect blood samples from all professional riders to create a medical profile, or passport, that would be compared to the data registered in doping tests.

Jonathan Vaighters, manager of team Garmin-Slipstream and president of the Association of Professional Cycling Teams said the UCI should have shown more understanding.

"I'm confident that the five teams listed by the UCI are fully supportive in spirit and in finance of the Biological Passport," he said.

"They all take part in the programme, all have had their athletes tested multiple times and all are fully invested in the full execution of the Biological Passport."

"In these difficult times, financial flexibility is something everyone in cycling will need to have.

"Hopefully, in the future, the AIGCP and the UCI will be able to negotiate payment plans acceptable for everyone far in advance of deadlines so these situations don't become a controversial matter."

Reuters