This is not something that we can be proud of

Professor Joan Stringer

But the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) condemned the commission's calls for employers to be forced to carry out pay reviews.

Since the Equal Pay Act was introduced in 1970, the gap between average hours earnings for men and women in full-time work had narrowed from 31% to 18%, the report found.

But according to the commission the proportion of men's full-time wages that women working part-time received had hardly altered.

The gap stood at 39%, the widest gulf in any EU country, the commission found.

While professional women had seen their incomes rise, many others were trapped in low-paid, part-time jobs, the study found.

Scotland's gaping gulf

Scotland had the largest gap between men and women's earnings.

Here the gender earnings gap was 19% - 1% higher than the UK figure and 6% higher than in Wales.

The commission's Scotland Commissioner, Professor Joan Stringer, condemned the figures as "disgraceful".

"Low wages trap women in poverty and prevent them form acquiring new skills and preparing for retirement," Professor Stringer said.

"The gap between men and women's pay in Scotland is wider than in Britain as a whole and the British pay gap is the worst in Europe.

"This is not something that we can be proud of," she said.

The commission accused employers of complacency and called for new laws to force them to carry out pay reviews.

But the CBI said that would be ineffective and would impose an unnecessary and excessive burden on companies.