Double Olympic champion Mo Farah's medical data is set to be examined for any evidence of doping following allegations made against his coach.
British star Farah is expected to seek answers from his coach Alberto Salazar in the United States this week in the wake of doping allegations made by the BBC's Panorama programme against Salazar and American athlete Galen Rupp, Farah's training partner.
Panorama alleged that Oregon-based Salazar had overseen Rupp's use of banned substances.
Both men have denied those claims, while Farah, who pulled out of last Sunday's Diamond League meeting in Birmingham stating he was "physically and emotionally drained," has not been accused of doing anything illegal.
UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner, though, has said that Farah's medical information can be assessed, and that if he was a close friend of the London 2012 gold medallist he would advise him to suspend his relationship with Salazar until allegations have "washed through".
"What we can look at is all the data surrounding our own athlete, Mo Farah: blood data, supplements data - everything surrounding his medical treatment," Warner told Radio 4's Today programme.
"We're in charge of that. We run that from the UK, through Neil Black, our performance director, Barry Fudge, who's our endurance expert. We need to make sure there's nothing else there we haven't seen, we're not aware of, hasn't been analysed.
"It may well be that the outcome of our own investigation says there's nothing untoward going on as far as we can uncover in any way, shape or form around British Athletics and a British athlete.
"If, subsequently, the coach himself is proven to be guilty of doping offences, then there's a second stage there and a decision would need to be taken.
"Now, one of the possible outcomes of all of this is, even though - and I'm sure that's probably going to be the case - there's nothing untoward proven around Mo Farah and British Athletics, we might still recommend to Mo and might still decide ourselves to suspend our relationship because of the reputational damage that could be caused."
Salazar is head coach at the prestigious Nike Oregon Project in Portland, and an "unpaid consultant" for UK Athletics. Farah said three days ago that he intends to stand by his coach until he was proven to have done wrong.
But Warner acknowledged that he could understand those who called for the 32-year-old Briton to distance himself from Salazar.
"If I was a personal friend of Mo's, not the British Athletics chairman, and he was just coming to me for advice, I think I'd have said to him, 'do you know what, the best thing to do is to suspend the relationship for now, compete on the European circuit this summer, go to the World Championship in Beijing, let the allegations against Alberto be washed through by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and see where it leads'," Warner told BBC Radio Five.
"However, I completely respect the fact Mo has great loyalty to his coach."
