Northern Rock chief executive Adam Applegarth gave evidence to Westminster's treasury select committee last week that if he had been able to borrow from the ECB via Dublin, customer panic and the first run on an English bank in over 150 years might have been averted.

"If we had been able to borrow on the lines we did, using mortgages as collateral, the answer is yes, " Applegarth told MPs.

In early September Northern Rock was forced to ask the Bank of England for a line of credit under its statutory lender of last resort facility after institutional lenders balked at providing liquidity to a mortgage bank in the wake of the US subprime crisis.

Applegarth said last week that if proper arrangements were in place in the Irish subsidiary, he might have been able to get cash from the European Central Bank and averted Britain's first bank run in 150 years.

"That would have taken two to three more months, " Applegarth told the committee. "It would have been a gamble of relying to get cash in place through the Irish branch, " he said.

Around 150 international banks, many of them British, were able to access liquidity from Frankfurt in the wake of the sub-prime credit crunch by requesting funds in the name of their eurozone branches. However Northern Rock did not have the necessary paperwork in place with the Irish central bank as a conduit for ECB funding.

"The necessary legal structures and types of eligible collateral necessary to underpin any agreements would have had to be in place beforehand, " said a central bank spokeswoman, who stressed that the complexity of requirements meant it would take months to arrange.

A representative of Northern Rock in Ireland said, "We answered all questions put to us at the Treasury select committee and have nothing else to add."

Ron Stout, Northern Rock assistant director of public relations said: "The exchange of conversation at the Treasury select committee [referring to the Irish subsidiary] was in direct response to questions about why we had not secured funds from the ECB which was an option because we have a Dublin branch."

In response to a question on whether there was a lesson for banks to have these arrangements in place before a crisis, Stout said "you're perfectly entitled to take that approach".