Just 18% of MPs in the House of Commons are women, which means the country is languishing in 33rd place in the EOC's new world league table.

Women MPs worldwide

Sweden: 42% Denmark: 37% Finland: 36% UK: 18% France 11%

The UK is not only well behind leaders Sweden (42%), Denmark (37%) and Finland (36%), but even China and Vietnam have more women MPs.

The EOC is pressing for urgent legislation and Transport, Regions and Local Government Secretary Stephen Byers, on Wednesday pledged to get the new laws through "as quickly as possible".

Shame

EOC chairwoman Julie Mellor said: "This is a record to be ashamed of.

"I urge all political leaders to tackle inequality in every party."

The research, carried out by Bristol University academics, looked at how many women were in parliament in the UK compared with other countries.

The figures contrast with the 37% of Scottish Parliament members and 42% of Welsh Assembly members who are women.

The problem is that those women who put themselves forward are simply not being selected in winnable seats

Julie Mellor EOC Chairwoman

It highlighted the "poor" record of British political parties in raising the number of women candidates.

Labour used women only shortlists to select candidates for the 1997 election before they fell foul of a legal challenge.

The use of shortlists that year produced 35 of the 65 women who were elected then for the first time.

But the new report, by Judith Squires and Mark Wickham-Jones, suggested the short-term use of the lists could have created a backlash against women candidates.

"They may have generated resentment against those women shortlisted without guaranteeing that constituency Labour parties selected any female candidates," it said.

'Urgent action needed'

Now the government has promised new legislation to allow such shortlists to be used.

EOC believes it is vital if changes are to be made in time to make a mark on the next general election.

With the publication of the report on Wednesday, the commission recommended using "twinning", where neighbouring seats choose one man and one woman.

Women MPs per party

Labour: 23% Conservative: 8% Lib Dem: 10%

Another proposal is "zipping", where women and men are alternated on candidate lists.

Ms Mellor told reporters: "International experience has shown that measures such as all-women shortlists, twinning, or zipping, do work."

She added: "We know there is no shortage of women with a lot to offer politics.

"The problem is that those women who put themselves forward are simply not being selected in winnable seats."

Bias evidence

There is anecdotal evidence of women being obstructed at local level, said the EOC, suggesting some constituency selection panels are biased.

The idea of women-only shortlists won the approval of Michael Portillo when he was running as a candidate to lead the Conservative Party.

Leadership hopeful Iain Duncan Smith has criticised shortlists.

Decline in numbers

However, he acknowledged that more women needed to be selected for winnable seats.

His rival, Ken Clarke, says both selection procedures and some the attitudes of some voluntary party workers need to change to help attract more women and ethnic minority candidates.

The Liberal Democrats say they want to have more women in Parliament and argue the best way of achieving that aim is through proportional representation.

The last general election saw the number of women MPs fall for the first time in 20 years.

There are now 118 women MPs in the House of Commons - three fewer than after the 1997 general election.

In the last 80 years, there have been 4,500 MPs at Westminster - only 240 of them were women.