Police said they had arrested 113 people in Manchester and Salford, and 50 in Liverpool.

In Gloucester, in western England, eight fire crews fought a blaze in a large derelict building, cars were set on fire and groups of youths attacked police with rocks and bottles.

Cars were burned and stores looted in West Bromwich and Wolverhampton in central England; and in Nottingham a gang of young men set fire to a police station. There were also disturbances in Birmingham and Leicester in the Midlands, and Milton Keynes north of London.

In London, commuters hurried home early on Tuesday, shops shut and many shopkeepers boarded their windows.

Gangs have ransacked stores, carting off clothes, shoes and electronic goods, torched cars, shops and homes - causing tens of millions of pounds of damage - and taunted the police.

Spending cuts

Community leaders said the violence in London, the worst for decades in the multi-ethnic capital of 7.8 million, was rooted in growing disparities in wealth and opportunity, but many insisted that greed was the looters' only motive.

Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters: "This is criminality pure and simple and it has to be confronted and defeated."

"People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain's streets," he said after the first meeting of COBRA, on Tuesday.

The unrest poses a new challenge to Cameron as Britain's economy struggles to grow while his government slashes public spending and raises taxes to cut a yawning budget deficit - moves some commentators say have aggravated the plight of young people in inner cities.

Police said they had arrested a total of 770 people - one as young as 11 - in London since the looting began on Saturday, and had charged 167 suspects, mainly with burglary and public order offences.

The first riots broke out on Saturday in north London's Tottenham district, when a protest over the police shooting of a suspect led to violence.

Police are likely to come under pressure over that incident after a watchdog said on Tuesday there was no evidence that a handgun retrieved by police at the scene had been fired. Reports initially suggested Mark Duggan had shot at police before they shot and killed him.