Have you ever been frightened off buying a used car from a newspaper ad, or a man in the street, for the fear it might be registered as stolen?

With Home Office figures showing more than 300,000 cars and motorbikes were stolen in the UK, in the last recorded year, that is a very understandable fear. The consequences of discovering the dream car or motorbike you have just purchased was registered as lost or stolen can be devastating.

Because of the way UK law works, many people every year lose both the car they have bought in good faith, and their money, because they have failed to take the necessary checks before embarking on, what is for many, their largest purchase, after the roof over their head.

Help is at hand. The internet revolution has opened up a vast spectrum of free information on many different aspects of every day life. It is now possible to access, gratis, the price houses have sold for in a neighbourhood, the cheapest petrol stations in a locality, and even what newspapers people living in the same postcode area read. It is also possible, now, for motorists to find out, free of charge, if a used car is registered as stolen with the police's, lost and stolen database by logging onto the net.

With the motto 'buyer beware' in mind, the UK Home Office Car and Bike Theft Indexes, also available online, gives motorists an insight into the type of cars and motorbikes which are most likely to have been stolen.

Government statistics show saloon cars are the car thief's vehicle of choice, and were the most likely type of car to be amongst the UK's 282, 816 stolen cars, according to latest figures. Around 12 in every 1000 saloon cars were stolen, which is twice the number of 4x4s and people carriers, which ranked at 6 stolen for every thousand that were registered.

The age of a car has a significant impact on its chances of being stolen. Cars registered more than 13 years ago were the most likely to be stolen, according to the Car Theft Index, with a theft rate of 31 per thousand registered. Vehicles registered after 1997 are much less likely to be driven away by a car criminal, with just 5 in every thousand being stolen.

Two wheelers are proportionately more at risk of theft than cars, with 37 per 1000 being stolen, compared to 10 cars per 1000. This is due in part to the ease at which a motorbike can be put into the back of a van or lorry. Low powered mopeds and scooters are the most likely sort of motorbike to be stolen, with those under 5 years old, being stolen at a rate of 85 in every 1000, and making up 60 per cent of motor bike thefts.