Car manufacturers seeking state aid have been forced to accept onerous agreements to ringfence their overseas operations so that taxpayers' money is used within national borders and cannot be used to bankroll foreign jobs.

Governments have demanded assurances that state bailout funds will not be exploited outside their own jurisdiction and will be used to safeguard the jobs of their own citizens, carmakers and industry specialists said.

Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, is preparing to unveil his plan to throw a lifeline to Britain's carmakers on Wednesday. It is understood that he sought assurances from carmakers — when they asked him for financial help in November — that any financial help would be used in Britain.

General Motors, the American owner of Vauxhall, was told that it had to promise that assistance from Downing Street would be used solely to protect the 5,000 workers in Britain who make the Vauxhall Astra in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, and the Vivaro van in Luton, Bedfordshire.

In an interview, Rick Wagoner, the chief executive of General Motors, said that America's biggest carmaker would “structure ourselves accordingly” to meet the demands of governments, including those of Britain, Spain and Germany, that have sought to bail out their national car industries with state loans.

Mr Wagoner said: “There are some sovereign constraints. We need to pay attention to funds' flow and to structure ourselves accordingly. Any government is going to look for some commitment along those lines.”

Lord Mandelson is expected to extend the offer of credit guarantees, which would make lenders more likely to extend borrowing facilities to carmakers as the taxpayer would be underwriting part of their business. These facilities then could be used to bankroll offers to entice car buyers.

Governments' desire to ringfence state aid is not surprising. “This is inevitable because governments only have jurisdiction that extends over their elected area,” one corporate restructuring expert in the car industry said. “But the auto industry is global and does not necessarily fit to the structure of government.”

David Cole, the chairman of the Centre for Automotive Research, in Detroit, said: “In some countries this is easy, but in most, this is not the case. When one looks at Saab, that was relatively straightforward for General Motors to satisfy the Swedish Government that the state aid would stay within their borders because Saab is Swedish-based. In this case, the Swedish Finance Minister was quite clear that he did not want $4billion of jobs going outside the country.”

Many governments realise that state aid is not enough. Washington, which this month extended a multi-billion-dollar loan to Chrysler, had been involved in talks to seal a manufacturing deal with Fiat, of Italy. Mr Cole said: “Washington realised that Chrysler cannot survive by itself, that the ultimate solution was for Chrysler to join with someone else.”

Times Recommends

• Minister in talks with Saudis to protect creditors
• Premier Inn hits back in £29-a-room row
• Bankers hit back at 'populist' bonus supertax