The Bank of England governor, Mr Eddie George, said the chances of a "downward adjustment" in the global equity market were greater than the chances it would keep rising at the same pace.

Mr George's comment - a faint echo of the "irrational exuberance" remark once made by US Federal Reserve chairman Mr Alan Greenspan - came in an interview published in the Observer yesterday.

The remark about the state of the stock market was in response to a question on whether markets were showing symptoms of what Mr Greenspan once theoretically termed "irrational exuberance", a comment which then unnerved the high-flying US stock market.

Mr George said: "Alan was posing a question. In that sense, yes, it's a real question which I have subscribed to for some time."