Details of thousands of people’s credit and debit cards have been mistakenly made available on the internet after a security breach of Newcastle City Council's systems.

Up to 54,000 individual cardholders are affected. Information was placed on an open server instead of a secure network.

The blunder happened five weeks ago, and no cards have yet been subject to fraud.

The council says the details are encrypted and three-digit security codes are not included with the details.

The problem was uncovered after external computer specialists were recruited to test Newcastle's systems.

'Northumbria Police’s Economic Crime Unit is working closely with Newcastle City Council with an investigation involving a possible breach of computer security,' said Detective Inspector Phil Butler.