London's Big Ben tilting?

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The famous Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy may soon have company. London's iconic Big Ben too is tilting.

A committee of British MPs are to investigate how to ensure Parliament's Clock Tower - better known as Big Ben - can be prevented from tilting further, after surveyors found it was leaning, the BBC reported.

The Clock Tower, housing the bell which is called Big Ben, was completed in 1859. The clock tower holds the largest four-faced chiming clock in the world and is the third-tallest free-standing clock tower.

Since then a five-storey car park and the Jubilee underground line have been constructed.

Construction expert Prof John Burland of Imperial College London, who oversaw the building of the car park, told BBC Radio the lean had 'been there for years.'

"When I first started work on the car park it was obvious that it was leaning.

"We made measurements on it. It was leaning at one in 250 to the vertical, which is just about visible. That's the break point between looking vertical and looking like a slight lean".

"We've known about it for years and it was probably developed at a very early stage because there's no cracking in the cladding and we think it probably leant while they were building it and before they put the cladding on."

"That was a long time ago and buildings do lean a little bit," Burland said.

It is not the first time there have been problems with Big Ben, one of the world's most famous tourist attractions, which stands at 96 metres tall.

In 1976 pendulum weights fell down a shaft and the clock mechanism exploded, putting it out of action for almost nine months.

Although the tilt is nothing like as pronounced as that of the 55.86 metres tall Leaning Tower of Pisa, it can still be spotted by the naked eye - just.

Burland said: "If you stand in Parliament Square and look towards it, you can just see that it moves very slightly to the left, but I wouldn't put any political slant on that."

But there was no need to worry, Burland said.