Birds and other wildlife often suffer when oil is discharged at sea

Until now, coastguards have relied on visual sightings of oil dumping incidents, but with vast areas of sea to cover, prosecutions have been few.

Eads Astrium, in Stevenage, Herts, has developed a satellite system to catch those dumping fuel at sea rather than returning to port for the purpose.

Colin Tomlinson, with Yarmouth coastguard, said: "Hopefully, this will deter ships from dumping."

His district, which covers the Southern North sea oil and gas industry, is coordinating the European trial of the satellite system.

During the trial, coastguards are sent sightings from satellite images via email.

The system shows coastguards spill areas in real time

The position of ships is checked, and pollution control aircraft are then sent to identify offenders, who can be arrested at their next port.

Mr Tomlinson added: "We now have a visual picture of the sea on a daily basis and any oil slick in the area is instantly picked up."

Toby Stone, with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, said: "We estimate there are in excess of 600 minor discharges from ships per year.

"These are actually going down, but there are other forms of pollution, for example, from offshore installations."

The agency said offenders often dump oil because it is less expensive to discharge the material there than to return to port for proper disposal.