The British consumer’s insatiable appetite for borrowing appears to show no sign of abating with the average level of personal debt rising above £4,000 for the first time.

According to research published by Datamonitor the average UK adult owes £1,302 on credit cards, £1,892 on unsecured personal loans and £812 on overdrafts and motor and retail finance deals.

This means total average debt per person is £4,004, up 10 per cent from 2003 and an increase of 45 per cent from £2,767, in 2000.

The figures will create unease on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, which has increased interest rates from a low of 3.5 per cent in November 2003 to 4.75 per cent to curtail exuberant consumer spending and prevent the economy from overheating.

The data is likely to add further weight to the arguments of Paul Tucker, the only member of the MPC to vote for an interest rate increase at the Bank’s February meeting.

The minutes of the meeting, which were released today, reveal that Mr Tucker argued for an increase in rates because the economy had recovered from a "soft patch" in the July-to-September period of last year with house prices and consumer credit remaining firmer than expected.

But other members of the nine-strong committee disagreed and voted for no change citing "surprisingly weak" consumer spending over Christmas and the modest rate of pay rises.

"One of the major reasons behind this increase in debt levels is the fact that the majority of bad debt indicators, such as unemployment, records of mortgage arrears and repossessions and county court judgements remain at their historically low levels," Oksana Selezneva, financial services analyst at Datamonitor and author of the report, said.

"This has given consumers the confidence to keep on borrowing and the ability to cope with their debt repayments relatively well," she added.

Figures released today by Egg, the internet bank, appear to confirm that consumers are finding it increasingly hard to maintain debt repayments.

Announcing a trebling in annual losses, Egg said it was introducing tighter credit controls after an increasing number of customers were defaulting on personal loans.

The company said provisions against bad debts surged 50 per cent to £182.4 million in 2004. The figures follow research by PKF, the accountancy firm, showing that more young people than ever are declaring bankruptcy because of personal loans and credit card debts.

In its survey of Scottish insolvency cases, PKF found that more than half of personal bankruptcies were among people under 30, who were using credit to fund lavish lifestyles they could not afford.