And Mr Brown also urged MPs to follow the example of public sector workers by accepting a below-inflation pay rise when they vote on their own salaries.

Speaking to the House of Commons Liaison Committee, Mr Brown hailed the three-year public sector pay deals which have seen 1.75 million workers such as nurses, teachers and doctors accept rises ranging from 2.2% to 2.5% at a time when inflation stands at 3.3%.

He told MPs: "There has got to be restraint in the private sector and there has got to be fairness at the top as well as the low-paid end of the spectrum...

"At the top of British business, people have got to accept their responsibilities as well. In the interests of the country we have got to keep inflation low."

MPs vote on an independent review which recommended inflation-busting 4.4% pay rises at Westminster. Ministers are urging them to reject the hike, offering them instead a package worth around 2.2%.

Mr Brown told the committee: "I hope that MPs will recognise that the settlements in the public sector for key workers have been around 2.3%, 2.4%, 2.5% when they vote on this year's pay in the House of Commons."

He warned: "In Britain historically, we have had a huge inflation problem because we allowed inflation too easily to creep back into the system domestically and then we had, on top of that, the wages spiral.

"It is very much in the interests of everybody in the country that we avoid what is an internationally-generated problem of inflation - and everybody knows it comes from oil and food prices around the world - becoming a wages problem in the future."

Mr Brown said he was "very concerned" about the pressure on families from rising prices at the petrol pump and supermarket tills.