SINGAPORE - India's Tata Motors Ltd has agreed to inject "tens of millions" of pounds into Jaguar Land Rover to prevent an immediate cash flow crisis, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

The move by Tata, which bought the luxury carmaker earlier this year for $2.3 billion(S$3.32 bil) from Ford Motor, comes on top of a "hundreds of millions" of working capital it has provided to the British firm, the paper said citing sources close to Tata. Last week British business minister Peter Mandelson confirmed that he had held talks with Jaguar Land Rover, which he said was under "particular strain".

He said the government, which has added billions of pounds to the national debt by nationalising or taking stakes in several banks, did not have an open cheque book.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday the government wants to help the car industry through the economic downturn but the main responsibility lies with the carmakers' owners.

(Reporting by Kazunori Takada; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)