Mr Shapps said the first he had known of the planned Today slot yesterday had been the evening before when he told his advisers it would be "difficult" as he was going to be on the train to Stoke.
However, Mr Humphrys maintained: "There was a booking with your staff which never happened."
Mr Shapps retorted: "It gave a wrong impression to the listeners."
The minister was appearing on Today after figures from the Homes and Communities Agency showed that the number of "starts" for affordable housing had fallen dramatically.
Figures dropped from 35,735 between October 2010 and March 2011 to 454 from April to September this year. The figure for the April to September period in 2010 was 13,626.
They came out a day after a ministers had announced a series of measures designed to revive the housing market, including measures to help property builders, including a scheme to underwrite mortgages.
Mr Shapps defended the Government over the figures, saying that many more homes were in the pipeline under a new housing programme, which would be reflected in much-improved figures in another six months.
He denied that he had seen the numbers ahead of the flagship annoucement and told Mr Humphrys: "Frankly I think you have given a very misleading report by trying to suggest I have avoided an interview and that we knew about these figures."
A BBC spokeswoman defended Today, saying: "It was perfectly reasonable to question the timing of the government's housing strategy announcement.
"Housing Minister Grant Shapps himself accepted that he knew the figures on the actual number of affordable housing being built were to be released the day after the Government's announcement.
"The interview about these figures was cancelled earlier in the week so we were pleased that Mr Shapps was able to appear on the programme on Friday morning."
In September, David Cameron criticised the BBC over its coverage of the summer riots, saying it had tried to "mush" them together with other ills in society.
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