Death row prisoner Richard Glossip has been granted a last-minute stay of execution.

The Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin stopped the death sentence being carried out amid concerns over one of the execution drugs.

The 37-day stay sees Glossip's execution rescheduled for 6 November.

The dramatic intervention came after the US Supreme Court rejected a final appeal by the 52-year-old, who was twice convicted for the 1997 murder of his boss, but he claims he was framed and is innocent. 

Oklahoma prison officials had delayed the execution as they awaited the decision.

Glossip had already had his last meal of pizza and fish and chips.

His execution was due to be Oklahoma's first since the nation's highest court dismissed a challenge to the state's three-drug lethal injection formula.

The executive order issued by the governor granting the temporary reprieve said: "This stay is ordered due to the Department of Corrections having received potassium acetate as drug number three for the three-drug protocol.

"This stay will given the Department of Corrections and its attorneys the opportunity to determine whether potassium acetate is compliant with the executive protocol and/or to obtain potassium chloride."

Glossip was convicted of murdering his motel owner boss because the man who carried out the 1997 killing said Glossip had paid him to do it.

In return for his testimony, the actual killer escaped a death sentence and is serving life in prison.

Glossip spoke to Sky News on Tuesday by telephone from his cell in Oklahoma State Penitentiary just as he was being served his last meal.

Two weeks ago before a last-minute reprieve, he went through the same ritual, ordering the same food, including pizza and fish and chips.

Justin Sneed, a handyman at the Best Budget Inn, admitted using a baseball bat to kill the motel's owner, Barry Van Treese.

But Sneed continues to blame Glossip, telling the Oklahoma news organisation The Frontier: "He kept begging and pleading until the point he pushed me over an edge."

Glossip's attorneys say Sneed is lying and point out that in the interview he made a new claim which he had never raised before, to explain why there was no physical evidence linking Glossip to the crime.

"I look back now and I notice that he put some gloves on and he made sure his fingerprints wasn't there," Sneed was quoted as saying.

But Glossip told Sky News: "He testified at my second trial. He was asked that by the DA (District Attorney): 'Was Richard wearing gloves?' He said no.

"He said 'Does Richard own a pair of gloves?' He said no. And now he's on TV saying that I did."