Concert goers and sports fans need better protection from ticket touts, a committee of MPs will warn next week.

MPs on the Culture Select Committee are set to put pressure on websites, such as eBay, and the new breed of ticket exchanges, such as Viagogo and Seatwave, to prevent sales of fake tickets and to ensure that prices are not artificially inflated.

The value of online touting doubled to an estimated £200 million in 2007, according to Tixdaq, a research company that tries to monitor the fast-growing but lightly regulated ticket sales business.

The MPs are expected to call for “a middle way” between banning touting – there is little expectation of formal government intervention – and asking the emerging industry to police itself. Calls for the banning of touting of tickets to a select group of “crown jewel” events are likely to be rejected.

Some gigs sell out in minutes, but tickets then become available on the internet at higher prices almost immediately. Yesterday, tickets for a Radiohead concert in London in June with a face value of £42.50 were on sale on exchanges at between £66.50 and £139 - a mark-up of between 56 per cent and 227 per cent.

There are also allegations that touts are using special software to harvest large numbers of tickets online. The current tour of the teen star Hannah Montana sold out almost immediately amid such claims, although there is no clear evidence that this practice has reached the UK.

The marked-up prices and examples of fraudulent sales – sometimes tickets do not turn up – have prompted calls for tighter regulation.

“I am against the idea that a ticket is a commodity,” said Harvey Goldsmith, the veteran promoter, who wants touting to be banned because fans increasingly are being sold fake tickets online. “There were tickets for Bruce Springsteen’s O2 dates on eBay before it was decided how much they would cost, before we had even announced the concerts.”

Resale of football tickets is tightly restricted, partly for public safety reasons, and it will be illegal to resell tickets for the London Olympic Games in 2012. However, there is little support among events organisers for broadening those rules. Instead, last month Britain’s music managers asked for a slice of the resale price in any “secondary ticketing sale” in order to generate income for artists. Eric Baker, the chief executive of the privately backed Viagogo, argues that being able to resell tickets is an economic right.

“We believe tickets are property: people who have bought tickets but cannot go to an event have the right to resell. They own it, just like they own a car or a book,” Mr Baker said.

He said that unlike some sites, Viagogo operates a protection scheme so that unsatisfied consumers could get an “equivalent ticket” or a refund. The site makes money by charging a commission on sales, with the buyer paying 10 per cent of the transaction value and the seller 15 per cent. However, the sources of the tickets on online exchanges have been questioned. Marc Marot, the manager of acts such as the DJ Paul Oakenfold and a leading figure behind the resale rights scheme, said: “I’d like to know how many tickets on the websites come from the event promoters.”

Seatwave said that promoters could help by making more tickets available. It estimates that typically 40 per cent of tickets do not go on general sale and instead are reserved for VIP packages, fan clubs, friends of the performer and for the record company.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive