AN outage to BT's broadband service has left many users struggling to access the internet.

The UK's biggest internet provider reported outages in several areas at around 9.30am.

A spokesman said the problems appeared to be mainly affecting London and the South East - but the website Down Detector has already received thousands of reports from Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Leeds, Bristol, Nottingham and Leicester.

BT's customer support Twitter account said it was attempting to restore service as quickly as possible.

The company said: "Some BT Broadband customers have reported problems accessing websites this morning. Sorry, we're aware of a problem & working to fix asap."

The outage comes a day after MPs warned that BT must "put its house in order" or face a break-up after failing to invest in its Openreach network arm potentially to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

A BT spokesman said: "We're sorry that some BT and Plusnet customers are experiencing problems accessing some internet services this morning.

"This is due to power issues at one of our internet peering partners' sites in London. Engineers are working to fix things as fast as possible."

A BT spokesman said this afternoon: "The issue has now been fixed and services have been restored."

Consumer group Which? called for compensation for those affected.

Director of policy and campaigns Alex Neill said: "Many people now view broadband as an essential service so it's only right that consumers are automatically compensated when their service is lost, as it has been for many BT customers today.

"The Government must push forward with the Digital Economy Bill to give broadband customers this right as soon as possible."