The IT support systems of one of the UK's leading banks was called into use after technical problems which saw some users randomly shown details of other customers.

Abbey, the nation's sixth-biggest bank, was forced to initiate immediate IT support after reports that some of its online users were being shown entirely different customer details to those they had been searching for, reports the BBC website.

The incident led to the closure of the bank's online services for a few hours while the problem was investigated, but the firm now insists "no security breach" occurred.

"There was a short window where customers could view random data, none of which related to a specific customer, and none of which could be transacted on," an Abbey spokeswoman told the site.

"It was a presentational error without any security exposure.

"Our security alerts were triggered and we immediately responded by removing the service to correct the issue," she added.

The Abbey spokeswoman reported that the problem was based on its IT network and that the firm was now looking into ways to ensure no further such incidents occurred.

According to recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent)