The world is much closer to running out of oil than official international estimates admit, according to a informant at the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The anonymous source claimed the IEA has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering worldwide panic buying.

The senior official claimed the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the likelihood of finding new reserves, according to a report in the Guardian on Monday.

Several experts have, over the years, questioned the validity of published IEA figures. In particular they doubted the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels.

External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production.

The British government, among others, invariably uses the IEA statistics rather than any of its own to argue that there is little threat to long-term oil supplies.

John Hemming, the MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on peak oil and gas, said the revelations confirmed his suspicions that the IEA underplayed how quickly the world was running out

"This all gives an importance to the Copenhagen talks and an urgent need for the UK to move faster towards a more sustainable [lower carbon] economy if it is to avoid severe economic dislocation," he added.

The IEA was established in 1974 after the international oil crisis, with a core membership of 24 countries, in an attempt to try to safeguard energy supplies to the west.

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