Britain is probably already in a recession and a quick cut to interest rates is needed to stave off further financial pain, a Bank of England official said in an interview published Monday.

U.S.-based economist David Blanchflower, one of the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee that sets the bank's interest rate, said Britain could be in for an even rougher ride than the United States because it had been too worried about inflation to give its economy a needed shot in the arm.

"I think we are going into a recession and we are probably in one right now," Blanchflower was quoted as saying in The Guardian newspaper. "The U.S. has had a big stimulus but the U.K. has had none. So the same things that have been happening in the U.S. will happen in the U.K. but they could well be worse."

He argued for a deep cut to the Bank of England's interest rate - now at 5 percent - though he did not say to what level, exactly, it should fall.

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