Universities say more needs to be done

Barry Sheerman, education select committee chairman, says he will ask Mr Clarke to investigate the trade when he appears before the committee next week.

This follows reports that fake Oxford University degree certificates are on sale for �165.

Oxford University said that this was a "matter of concern".

Higher education has faced a series of problems over fake degree certificates and bogus colleges - with claims that there has been insufficient regulation to protect authentic qualifications and institutions.

'Worrying'

In this latest case, the Guardian newspaper has highlighted a trade in authentic-looking certificates that appear to be from UK universities - including Oxford and Strathclyde.

The Guardian said it obtained from a website a realistic-looking medical degree from Oxford, a bachelor of arts from Strathclyde and a full set of GCSEs - all at A grades - in the name of a student still awaiting his real results.

The website boasts: "All the documents I produce are Authentic looking workable items, in the main they are accepted as the genuine article."

Mr Sheerman said "decisive action" needed to be taken against the threat of counterfeit qualifications.

"It seemed very worrying and something my select committee should be looking at.

"We are renowned for high quality education in this country and anything that undermines this should be taken seriously, whether it is fake degrees on the internet or phoney universities."

College register

This follows the uncovering of a series of bogus colleges - where degree courses were being sold to overseas students without any of the necessary official approval.

These bogus colleges have used websites, often using material copied from authentic universities, to market themselves.

In a crackdown, linked to an attempt to prevent student visa fraud, the Department for Education and Skills is setting up a central register of legitimate educational institutions.

The problem of the trade in fake certificates is also longstanding - and e-mail users will have seen junk mail offering such "qualifications" for sale.

Five years ago, UK university vice-chancellors gained an interim injunction to prevent the sale of the fake certificates.

The court action also required a particular businessman to provide the names and addresses of people who had bought such degree certificates and details of the type of "qualification" they had acquired.

Call for action

At the time he stopped trading, a spokesperson for the vice-chancellors' orgnisation, Universities UK, said on Monday.

But now that he was apparently back in business, it felt the current legal framework was inadequate and it wanted to the government to address the issue.

"The government has to decide what it is going to do to tighten it up," she said.

She also said the case served as a reminder to potential employers that, when checking applicants' references, they could always contact a university and say 'does this person have a degree from you?'.

The education department said: "Where there has been a breach of the law, local authority trading standards or the police will take enforcement action depending on the offence committed.

"However in cases where no law has been broken it is up to institutions affected to take civil action."