Police officers are out in force urging drivers to "protect their vehicle like they would their home", in a week of coordinated activity to tackle keyless vehicle theft.

The campaign, codenamed Operation Endeavour, follows an eight per cent increase in vehicle theft across London in the last year, believed to be the result of organised criminals increasingly targeting keyless or remotely controlled vehicles to make money quickly.

Neighbourhood policing teams in every borough will hold local crime prevention events, targeted patrols and will be leafleting in hot-spot areas, to raise awareness amongst drivers.

In some boroughs, officers will be setting up check-and-advise points, where they can stop vehicles to check that they are being driven by the legitimate drivers, and provide owners with advice on protecting their vehicle.

Last year more than 6,000 cars and vans across London were stolen without the owners' keys. That is an average of 17 vehicles a day, and represents 42 per cent of all thefts of cars and vans.

The majority of such thefts appear to be the result of organised criminals using key-programming devices to create duplicate keys for vehicles, but it can include towing vehicles away.

Thieves use a device which bypasses the vehicle's electronic information as the owner locks it, or they break into the vehicle and connect a device to the OBD port, downloading the vehicle's information onto a blank key in a matter of seconds. The new key is then compatible with the vehicle, so it disables the alarm and the vehicle can simply be driven away.

The vehicles are targeted based on the desirability of their parts and range from prestige cars to vans. In fact, the two types of vehicle most stolen using this method in 2014 were vans.

Intelligence suggests that the criminals drive the vehicles into the Home Counties where most are stripped down into their component parts and then shipped abroad. They are sold on as far afield as Africa, where particular types of vehicle are in high demand.