By Matt Falloon and Steve Slater

LONDON (Reuters) - Mortgage lenders have called on the "cautious and slow" Bank of England to increase efforts immediately to ease the credit crunch, warning of a danger of home loans halving from last year's levels.

"There is a real and immediate need for broader based action than we have seen to date," Steven Crawshaw, Chairman of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), said in a speech in London on Friday.

A global lending squeeze has made it harder for banks to raise funds on financial markets, forcing mortgage lenders to toughen up their loan terms and raising the risk of a sharp housing market downturn and economic slowdown in Britain.

"It is ... a real possibility, looking forward from today, that net lending in 2008 could reach only half last year's level unless additional funds become available," Crawshaw said.

Net CML lending totalled just over 100 billion pounds in 2007.

The BoE has made funds available to try and ease the crunch and has cut interest rates three times since December, but policymakers are wary of rescuing financial institutions from the consequences of their own investment decisions.

"Compared with the actions of the Federal Reserve in the U.S., our central bank stands accused of having been cautious and slow," Crawshaw said. "The main short term palliative is in the hands of the Bank of England."

The Fed has made it much easier for banks to access cash and slashed official borrowing costs, in an effort to shore up a U.S. economy teetering on the edge of recession.