The Government's new online MoT system has been branded a "debacle" after glitches left motorists in danger of being forced off the road.

Garage owners have complained they are having to turn away drivers because the system is running slowly or has crashed meaning they may be unable to issue valid MoT certificates.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) said the system has been stuck by an "IT issue" and is asking garages to issue old-style paper MoTs and send the details on.

It comes as the DVSA has switched the issuing of MoTs to a cloud-based system, which uses apps to record the data on phones and tablets.

Paul Watters of the AA said: "We should have learnt from when the electronic MoT was introduced - you would have thought once bitten twice shy. It is a debacle.

"We want drivers to comply with motoring laws. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and DVSA are moving in the direction of cloud-based applications and I hope this is not a taste of things to come."

This computer glitch has affected an unknown amount of the 16,000 garages which have moved over to the new system.

Frustrated garage owners have complained they cannot get through to the the DVSA's help desk or the software company Kainos which was contracted by the Government to carry out the upgrade.

DVSA chief executive Alastair Peoples said: "We are aware there has been a delay in some MoT services due to an IT issue. We are working to urgently resolve this and minimise the number of customers affected.

"Contingency plans are in place. MoT certificates can still be processed manually and the online system is still functional.

 "Almost 800,000 MoTs have already been recorded using the new online system and DVSA has received positive feedback from industry representatives. The system offers more flexibility for garages as it doesn't require specialist IT equipment, and has significantly lower running costs."