Millions of Britons are making completely the wrong choice every day by choosing to pay back their mortgages on their credit cards, says an expert.

Richard Sorsky from the UK Insolvency Helpline Debt Advice Service described this decision of borrowers as nothing short of "financial suicide".

He argued that using credit cards for repayments on a properties mortgage was one of the worst decisions made by people and could have a devastating effect on their personal finances.

He added that there has been a marked rise in the number of people calling into the insolvency helpline for advice and guidance. In the first three months of the present fiscal year, the number of calls made to the advice service had grown by 40 per cent.

Mr Sorsky attributed the trend to a knee-jerk response from the public to the global financial crisis. People were panicking into making the wrong decision which they have not thought through properly, he said.

He further explained: "What you're finding now is that people, I think, are scared. They see Greece going into recession, they see America in recession and they're now thinking 'I've got to get help now'."

Recent research, carried out by moneysupermarket.com, found that around five million people in Britain were using their credit cards to pay for utility bills from their homes. Another 2.5 million people incur an extra £90 million as charges for using their credit cards to make cash withdrawals.

Meanwhile, market analyst Datamonitor has predicted that the British credit card industry would be hit by a 2.7 per cent dip in 2010 before returning to a relatively healthy period of growth next year.

Recently, Sandra Quinn, director of communications at the UK Card Association, explained that card owners were also exposing themselves to APR charges higher than 11 per cent by using their credit cards to gamble online.