AbstractWe model the K-correction for emission lines formed on the irradiated face of companion stars in compact binaries. We compute this K-correction in a general approach as function of the mass ratio and the disc flaring angle. Our results, combined with the detection of high excitation emission lines arising from the donor star, can be used to set constraints to the masses of neutron stars and black holes in persistent Low Mass X-ray Binaries (LMXBs).The application of our model to X1822-371 (Muñoz-Darias, Casares & Martínez-Pais 2005) lends strong support to the presence of a massive neutron star in this LMXB (i.e. M_NS > 1.6M⊙). Here, we also present the K-correction for the Black Hole binary GX339-4, where we obtain a solid lower limit to the black hole mass of M_BH > 5.8M⊙.