A brain surgeon has claimed that mobile phones could pose a bigger health risk than smoking cigarettes.

Dr Vini Khurana announced his findings after reviewing some of the health reports into mobile phones, but without carrying out new research.

He claimed that the risk of brain tumours doubles for mobile phone users, but that such tumours take 10 years to develop.

"It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking, and directly concerns all of us, particularly the younger generation, including very young children," said Dr Khurana.

"There is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours."

However, the findings have been disputed by the Mobile Operators Association (MOA).

"This is a selective discussion of scientific literature by one individual and presents no new research findings," said an MOA spokeswoman.

"It has not been published in a peer reviewed journal and does not present a balanced analysis of the published RF science considering the relative scientific quality of different studies.

"It reaches opposite conclusions to the World Health Organization and more than 30 other independent expert scientific reviews that find no evidence of adverse health effects from low-level radio signals."