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Last week, it was reported that German leaders were planning to propose a worldwide ban on oil trading by speculators, blaming hedge funds for price spikes.

Uwe Beckmeyer, transport chief for Germany's Social Democrats, told Berlin media he would call for G8 countries to act together to ban leveraged trading on energy contracts.

Mr Beckmeye claimed the latest rise, to $135 a barrel, had purely been caused by speculation.

But Joost van Leenders, investment specialist asset allocation at Fortis, said while speculative positions now accounted for roughly 15 per cent of the total market volume – double the level of 15 years ago – it was "not enough to explain" oil's persistantly high price.

"If oil prices had been pushed to fundamentally unsustainable levels, more demand would been destroyed. This is not the case," he said.

"Also, if producers really believed the high oil prices were due to speculators, they would have started securing future production revenues by locking in these high prices. Yet this is not happening. In other words, producers expect oil prices to remain high."