Almost half of people with investments in the UK have predicted that the Bank of England's monetary policy committee will raise interest rates to at least six per cent later this year.

In a survey of consumers with investments by financial services provider Barclays Stockbrokers , it was revealed that 45 per cent believe the committee will increase the base rate by half a percentage point or more in 2007.

Meanwhile, a further 41 per cent of respondents have expressed their belief that interest rates will be boosted by a quarter of a percentage point to 5.75 per cent.

Responding to the figures, Henk Potts, equity analyst at Barclays Stockbrokers, has said that financing analysts are becoming increasingly hawkish in their base rate predictions.

At the start of this year, there were hopes that interest rates would peak at 5.5 per cent, he said.

However, the threat of inflation appears to be more of a risk than was previously envisaged.

Yesterday, the Bank opted to maintain the base rate at 5.5 per cent.

So far this year, it has increased interest rates twice on January 11th and May 10th.