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A former Bank of England adviser has warner that the current loan crisis in America may push up mortgage rates in the UK.

Professor Willem Buiter, an ex-member of the Monetary Policy Committee, said UK banks were in crisis over their exposure to bad loans in the US.

He said this had made them reluctant to lend to each other, which had raised interbank lending rates.

Some banks are worried that their rivals may not have revealed multi-million pound losses on sub-prime mortgages in the US.

As a result, they are currently lending to each other in the interbank money markets at an interest rate of nearly 6.9%.

That is significantly higher than the standard bank rate of 5.75%, which the Bank of England kept unchanged after its monthly MPC meeting this week.

Professor Buiter told the BBC's Today programme: "The extent to which this translates into higher rates being charged to households and mortgages or hire purchase loans or higher loans to businesses in the real economy, that, I think, is an open question.

"The longer it lasts, the more likely it is that all rates from deposit rates to mortgage rates to loan rates will, ultimately, in the private sector get pulled up to that level," he added.

The current liquidity problems in the banking system have driven up interbank lending rates sharply in the past few weeks.

Professor Buiter said: "It is a new type of crisis - it is not an old fashioned banking crisis. We don't know how long it is going to last.

"Gradually clarity will dawn, but how long it will take, it could be weeks, it could be a few months."

There is substantial evidence that these higher rates are now starting to affect mortgage deals offered to the public. For example, five lenders - the Anglo Irish bank, Northern Rock, Heritable bank and the Derbyshire and West Bromwich building societies - have each offered new fixed-rate savings deals, but at rates up to 0.55% higher than before.

Also the he Anglo-Irish bank is now offering to pay savers 6.9% if they lock money away for one year.

"It is unusual to see rate rises that are not triggered by increases in base rate," said Andrew Hagger of the financial information service Moneyfacts.

"However, with money markets in a volatile state on the back of the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, it is not surprising to see savings rates being increased, in an attempt to bring funds in via their front doors, rather than resorting to traditional methods."