MPs have stepped up their criticism of the interest rates being charged by credit card companies.

A hearing of the Commons Treasury select committee on Tuesday saw bank chiefs under the spotlight over their charges and marketing techniques.

The committee has been waging a campaign against irresponsible lenders and called for more information to be made available to customers about the true cost of their borrowing.

Calls were also made for banks to share information with each other to stop consumers building up too many lines of credit and unsustainable repayments.

The bosses of Capital One, Lloyds TSB and HBOS, who together control a large part of the market, were grilled over the case of a 21-year-old deaf man who is believed to have committed suicide after building up debts of £15,000 with HBOS subsidiary Halifax bank.

Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb said: "His father feels convinced that the size of the debt was part of the pressure that he was under and he feels passionately about the need to lend responsibly.

"In this case he had been in all sorts of problems with a Halifax credit card and was then given a personal loan by the Halifax."

During the grilling, HBOS chief executive James Crosby said the company would "look at our performance in the wider area".

The practice of issuing credit card cheques also came under fire, with the failure to give as much prominence to the real rate of interest as ideas for spending the money singled out for criticism.

Committee chairman John McFall accused the banks of "skimming money off certain customers, largely speaking poorer customers".

And Labour MP James Plaskitt said HBOS advertises "holidays, gifts and treats" on the cheque stubs but not the APR.

Crosby replied that he "would be happy to put the APR on the stub" in future.