Britain remains on a heightened state of terror alert, the Home Office has confirmed.

The Security Services are at their second highest state of readiness, the BBC revealed.

The “severe general” alert was adopted following intelligence about plans by al Qaida supporters from North Africa, the BBC said.

The decision was unrelated to US President George Bush’s state visit to Britain this week, the Corporation reported.

The alert is meant for the security services and includes the police, Army and MI5, it was said. Internal alerts of this sort are not usually made public.

However, officials put out a statement stressing no there was no information about a specific threat.

“The police and security services are operating at an increased state of vigilance but there is no specific threat and the public should continue to be alert but not alarmed,” the Home Office said in a statement.

“As the Home Secretary has made clear, if there was intelligence of a specific threat then we would inform the public immediately.”