The International Longevity Centre UK said it was unfair for mortgage lenders to discriminate on the grounds of age.

At present, many retired people find it difficult to obtain mortgage finance in their later years.

The organisation said 21% of all households were headed by someone aged 50 or over and had outstanding borrowing on their main home in 2008-10. One-in-ten homeowners had outstanding mortgage loans when they passed 65 years old.

Director David Sinclair also said older borrowers needed to take some responsibility. He urged them to consider how they would repay interest-only mortgages and whether buy-to-let properties were a suitable replacement for a pension.

“We are living longer, our family structures are changing, we are marrying later and we are working longer,” Sinclair told a conference in London.

“At the same time, financial insecurity will result in more people needing to borrow more and later in life. We should be particularly worried about those retirees with interest-only mortgages but no linked investment.”

Sinclair said growing property prices had made the housing market an attractive investment but described the growing use of equity release as ‘worrying’.

“Whilst the introduction of “pension freedoms” could be a boon to the buy to let sector, older people should make sure they take advice before making the jump.

“With older people holding almost £1.4tn in wealth in their homes, equity release is going to be an attractive way of supplementing a pension for many.

“The industry needs to ensure that the income poor asset rich pensioners are well served by this market. That said, the recent growth in the number of people aged 55-64 taking equity release is potentially very worrying.”