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Fund managers are at loggerheads over the likelihood of spiralling deflation in the UK economy during the next year.

Stuart Thomson, economist at Ignis Asset Management, said the policy of quantitative easing was more likely to send the global economy "spiralling back into debt deflation" than have sufficient momentum to restore self-sustaining growth.

But Azad Zangana, European economist at Schroders, argued rising oil prices were the "key risk" to consumer recovery and that a deflationary spiral was now "very unlikely".

Mr Thomson turned to Shakespeare's soliloquy on suicide – to be or not to be – to describe a similar fate facing central banks over their exit strategy from quantitative easing.

He argued central banks were unsure what would happen after quantitative easing – whether the resulting rise in yields and competition for capital would choke off the recovery, or whether there was sufficient momentum to leap over these higher yields and return to growth.

"The global economy is being kept alive by the life support from central banks and governments," he said. "This unprecedented support has provided the illusion of health such that the global economy is no longer in intensive care, but requires an extensive period of recuperation and the continued drugs of public-sector liquidity."

He added that it would be "suicidal to remove this life support". He said conscience would "make cowards of the Federal Bank" - faced with a dilemma over whether to maintain, extend or curtail quantitative easing - and that the bank would maintain quantitative easing at its next meeting on June 24.

Yet Mr Thomson said that would insufficient to prevent a stumble in the global economy over the summer and that the Fed would be forced to provide further quantitative easing in the autumn.

"Fundamental support for risk is likely to fade over the next few months as the surprise indices fade, which leaves technical support from liquidity," he said.

"It is dangerous to rely upon this wall of money persisting, and the risk/reward for the pendulum between inflation and deflation is a shift back in favour of deflation over the next 4-5 months."

However, Mr Zangana, argued deflation was not the major threat to the global economy at present.

"The impact of rising oil prices on the consumer recovery will be the key risk ahead," he said. "The sources of current inflationary pressures present a threat to a sustained recovery in the UK rather than reflect one. What has become clearer is the scenario of a deflationary spiral is now very unlikely."

He pointed to the latest Consumer Prices index, which showed UK inflation remained "stubbornly higher" than expected.