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As a result the trade body published data comparing the industry's arrears performance for buy-to-let with the residential market and Bradford & Bingley's last set of results.

Bradford & Bingley's results for the first half of 2008 showed 1.78 per cent of its own mortgage book was three months or more in arrears while outstanding payments for its acquired book stood at 5.11 per cent.

According to the CML the latest data showed just 1.1 per cent of all buy-to-let mortgages outstanding were now in arrears of three months or more.

This compared with a figure of 1.33 per cent in arrears for the total mortgage market.

Bob Young, managing director of buy-to-let lender CHL Mortgages, said the figures showed buy-to-let arrears were less of a problem than with the wider market.

He said: "In response to the current criticism of buy-to-let the point should be made the sector is still sound and if lenders had not pushed themselves up the risk curve to a precarious height, we would not be witnessing the problems we currently are.

"Buy-to-let lending to genuine landlords, rather than short-term speculators, is not a risky business – unfortunately many lenders chose to ignore this in their scramble for volume and their lending practices have come back to hurt them."