The motoring industry is lending its weight to a new campaign aimed at closing a loophole that allows anyone in the UK to legally clone a number plate.

Under current regulations, drivers can legally purchase a showplate - a number plate designed to be used only for display purposes off the road. Any configuration of numbers and letters can be used on show plates.

But, when they steal cars, thieves frequently use show plates to replace existing registration numbers and then sell vehicles on with a false plate, says mycarcheck.com.

Recently, Robert Goodwill, Conservative MP for Scarborough and Whitby, managed to buy a show plate which was an exact replica of prime minister Gordon Brown's - using nothing more than a credit card and the internet.

Roger Powell, general manager of mycarcheck.com, commented: "Car cloning is big business, almost every police force across Britain has reported a rise in the number of incidents in recent months."

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