Britain's student visa system has been denounced as rife with "cheating and deception" by a teacher who has experienced the process from within.

The Daily Express quoted Mohammed Aslam Farook, from Bangladesh, as saying he saw at first-hand how a private language college was -little more than a fast-track route for immigrants wanting to get to Britain.

He believes the Government's "reckless and incompetent immigration policies seem to favour the most corrupt and dishonest".

His compelling warning came as the Government announced new measures designed to tighten loopholes in the student visa system.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson claimed that the numbers of students coming to the UK would be slashed by more rigorous application rules.

But a letter from Farook to Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling suggested the entire British -student visa system "favours the fraudsters rather than decent people".

He wrote: "These policies have created an underground culture of deception, cheating, pretence, duplicity and fraud. I am still at a loss to understand why an enlightened and wealthy nation allows such things to continue."

Farook spent 8,000 pounds to come to study English at a language college in east London in the hope of furthering his teaching career in Bangladesh.

He discovered the college was little more than "an easy entry to the UK for people seeking to work".

Little teaching was offered and staff appeared to openly accept the "students" were simply using the institution to get a visa.