The prime minister has promised to introduce "new measures to ensure… lower interest rates are passed on to mortgage holders."

In an interview printed in the News of the World, Gordon Brown said that he wants to see base rate reductions passed on to borrowers.

Since December the Bank of England has cut interest rates three times but high inter-bank rates have kept mortgage repayments up.

"Although the Bank of England has cut rates in recent months, the banks have not always been passing those reductions to their customers," Mr Brown told the newspaper,

"The Bank of England is injecting an additional £15 billion. We need to do more to see this feed through to improved availability of mortgage lending," he added.

Currently the base rate of interest is five per cent, with the Bank of England having announced three cuts from a rate of 5.75 per cent in December.