He said Machado had a “terrible” past that a “duped” Mrs Clinton had overlooked before holding her up “as an angel” in the first presidential debate.

“Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a US citizen so she could use her in the debate?” read a missive from Trump posted on his verified Twitter account at 5:30am (7:30pm AEST).

Trump’s taunt appeared to refer to footage from a Spanish reality show in 2005 in which Machado was a contestant and appeared on camera in bed with a male contestant. The images, posted this week to a newspaper’s website, are grainy and do not include nudity.

The show took place almost a decade after Trump invited reporters to watch Machado exercise and mocked her publicly for gaining weight after she won Miss Universe, which Trump owned at the time. In Monday’s debate, Mrs Clinton brought up Trump’s taunts of Machado.