The Bush Administration is considering following Gordon Brown's example and using hundreds of billions of dollars of bailout money to take ownership stakes in ailing US banks.

An Administration official said that no decision had yet been made on how to spend $700 billion of funds authorised by Congress last week, but the terms of the bailout law allowed the Treasury to support bank recapitalisation in turn for shares.

That partial nationalisation is the cornerstone of a £50 billion rescue package announced yesterday by the Prime Minister and Chancellor, Alistair Darling, which will be supported with £450 billion in liquidity funding and loan guarantees.

Combined with co-ordinated worldwide interest rate cuts, the rescue package appears to have helped calm market nerves. Although still volatile, the FTSE 100 was trading 2.4 per cent higher this morning after Asian bourses showed small gains.

Mr Brown was also in bullish mood this morning as he pledged to get tough with City fat cats, despite rebuking David Cameron, the Tory leader, in the Commons yesterday for having expressed similar sentiments.

“Our economy is built around people who work hard, who show effort, who take responsible decisions, and whether there is excessive and irresponsible risk-taking, that has got to be punished," he told GMTV.

Mr Brown said the banks who signed up to the rescue plan would have to accept that there could be no more huge bonus pay-outs for their top executives. “The days of big bonuses are over. One of the conditions of us helping the banks is that we will have to reach an agreement about their executive remuneration,” he said.

Unveiling the package yesterday, Mr Brown and Mr Darling were keen to present it as a different solution to that adopted by the United States, where the main focus has been to use taxpayer funds to clear "toxic assets" - unrecoverable mortgage debt - from the balance sheets of stricken lenders.

But the Administration official emphasised the flexibility of the US rescue package and said that Hank Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, was considering all the new powers granted in the legislation, which included partial nationalisation.

Supporters of this approach, such as Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who chairs the Joint Economic Committee in Congress, argue that injecting fresh capital into US banks who want to participate in the programme would be an effective way to bolster banks’ balance sheets and get them to resume lending. Taxpayers would benefit because the Government would receive an equity stake in the bank.

“This idea would, at a minimum, complement the Administration’s planned approach of buying up troubled assets and may prove to be the most promising tool of all in Secretary Paulson’s kit,” Mr Schumer said in a statement.

Mr Paulson told reporters yesterday that the Treasury was moving quickly to implement the $700 billion rescue effort and specifically mentioned the possible recapitalisation of banks. “We will use all the tools we’ve been given to maximum effectiveness, including strengthening the capitalisation of financial institutions of every size,” he said.

Asked whether he would try something like the British plan, he said: “We have a broad range of authorities and tools. ... We’ve emphasised the purchase of liquid assets, but we have a broad range of authorities. And I’m confident we have the authorities we need to work with going forward.”

If the Americans do want to adopt the UK model, they will be able to tap Mr Darling for advice directly. The Chancellor flies to Washington this afternoon ahead of crucial meetings of the finance ministers of the G7 group of rich countries tomorrow and the International Monetary Fund on Saturday.

Mr Brown, for his part, will be in close contact with his European counterparts ahead of next week’s EU summit in Brussels, following criticisms of the disarray following a similar crisis.

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