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Europe's drugs watchdog has raised the alarm over "spice" products, easily available online and mostly sold in the UK.

The newly-emerging cocktails of plant-origin ingredients are already either banned or controlled in some countries, said the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

And thanks to concern raised in a Swedish report, so-called "spice" is already on the EMCDDA's early warning system.

In its annual report on the state of the European drugs problem, the agency said little is so far known about the impact of effect of the combined plant materials contained in "spice" products.

Therefore nothing definitive can be said yet about the potential health risks or possible "psychoactive" effects of such products.

But the internet is now evolving as a new marketplace, offering access to a large public for the sale of alternative drugs to controlled substances, the report says.

Of a total of 115 online drugs shops surveyed across Europe for the report, 37% of them were based in the UK, compared with 15% in Germany, 14% in the Netherlands and 7% in Romania.

"Spice" products were offered for sale by 48% of the retailers surveyed, said the report, adding: "While the online shops selling 'spice' were based in 14 different European countries, more than two-fifths of these shops were located in the UK (42%) with significant numbers also in Ireland, Latvia and Romania."

By March this year, "spice" products had been withdrawn from online shops in Germany, Austria and France.