The Bank of England is under intense pressure to cut interest rates this week, with one prominent economist adding his voice to calls for borrowing costs to be lowered by a full percentage point.

Warning that the UK faced the prospect of an extended and deep recession, Howard Archer of Global Insight urged policymakers to forget increasingly misplaced fears of inflation and tackle the real risk facing the economy.

Archer, who is chief European and UK economist at the consultancy, believes monetary policymakers will settle for cutting interest rates by 0.5% for a second month running when they meet this Wednesday and Thursday.

However, he threw his weight behind a growing body of expert opinion that says more dramatic action is needed.

"There is a compelling case for the Bank of England to get on with the job' and deliver a full one percentage point cut from 4.50% to 3.50%," he said.

Other business heavyweights have concluded that it is essential to try to boost demand in the economy and that the time to tread carefully has passed.

Steve Radley, chief economist at the Engineering Employer's Federation, said unusual times called for unusual measures and that a full point cut was needed.

Citing growing risks of a worsening UK recession, the British Chambers of Commerce said the Bank should cut rates by 0.5% on Thursday but follow that up with another half-point cut before Christmas.

With most economists expecting that the Bank will make a cut of some sort, Prime Minister Gordon Brown appeared to believe action was likely.

"We have seen two cuts in interest rates," Brown said, referring to recent Bank of England decisions.

"I can't speculate about what the Bank of England will do because they are independent, but I believe that the trend around the world is to respond to falling oil prices and falling food prices. That is what we seeing at the moment," he said in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The prospect of reduced borrowing costs may provide some support to share prices in advance of this week's meeting.

The decision of the US Federal Reserve cut its interest rate by 0.5% to just 1% last week provided a huge boost to global stock markets.

The blue-chip FTSE-100 index enjoyed its best week yet, closing up by 12.7%. However, that left the index down by nearly 11% in October and 32% this year.

Market-watchers noted there have been several false dawns for markets, in which rallies have been followed by falls.

The Bank of England meeting will take place amid continuing efforts by leaders to address a crisis that has affected the whole world.

Finance chiefs from the Group of 20 key economies will meet in Brazil at the end of the week to lay the groundwork for a summit on November 15 in Washington, where world leaders will discuss how best to tackle the financial crisis.

Investors are hoping for further details from Belarus, Turkey, Pakistan and Serbia, Hungary and Ukraine, which are in talks with the International Monetary Fund for emergency funding.

Over the weekend, it became increasingly clear that the downturn is having a profound impact on hotspots in Asia. Some had thought the booming economies of countries such as China had become "delinked" from the economies of the West and effectively immune from their problems.

However, China's Premier Win Jiabao said it feared a downturn in its export markets could hurt the economy.

"We must be crystal-clear that without a certain pace of economic growth, there will be difficulties with employment, fiscal revenues and social development ... and factors damaging social stability will grow," he wrote in the Communist Party's ideological journal.

China cut interest rates last Wednesday for the third time in six weeks.

In India, the central bank cut its main lending rate on Saturday for the second time in as many weeks to ease a cash squeeze and spur economic growth.