Britain's universities are being targeted by computer junk mailers known as "spammers" who trade on the good reputations of academic institutions to peddle porn.

The problem is reaching epidemic proportions, affecting at least 16 institutions, among them some of the country's most prestigious universities. Universities are being flooded with complaints from members of the public shocked by the adult content of the emails.

The universities of Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, St Andrews and Warwick have been victims of the scam, whereby spam messages purporting to come from them have been sent to thousands, or even millions, of email addresses. Many of the messages that have been traced originated from the United States. None came from inside the universities' networks.

The messages, which carry titles such as "See best adult site on the net now!!" and "Do you like sex?" and come from addresses such as susan69@soton.ac.uk, have caused widespread offence.

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Portsmouth University said it had been contacted by about 3,000 members of the public, while Warwick's figure was 1,400. Westminster received 1,000 complaints and Jon Cole, Southampton's web editor, said the university had been "inundated" with comments.

Andrew Cormack, head of the incident response team for Janet, the United Kingdom's academic computer network, said the culprits would be traced to their internet service providers, who would terminate their accounts. However, this would not stop the perpetrators simply opening an account elsewhere and starting to operate again.

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Mr Cormack said universities were probably being targeted to add credibility to messages that might otherwise be deleted. "In a way, it is a compliment that we are seen as a reputable part of the internet," he said.

Anna Carboni, a partner in the intellectual property department of law firm Linklaters, said universities should be able to get redress through the courts. But she warned that court action could be complicated, expensive and protracted.

Ms Carboni said: "If they are portraying themselves as the university, there should be grounds for action. If there are any registered trademarks, there might be a trademark infringement action, and if they are doing anything defamatory, that would be a potential course of action."

Warwick University has traced messages sent with its warwick.ac.uk suffix to part of a network owned by internet access provider StarNet Inc. It is trying to track down the individual user responsible.

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Tom Van Deren, director of sales and marketing at StarNet, told The THES that the company sells chunks of its network to more than 1,000 internet service providers, which would encompass some 4 million users. Tracking individual spammers can therefore be difficult.

"We have put in filters, but occasionally there is going to be some spam that gets through," he said.

But he added that StarNet works with law enforcement agencies to find spammers, and said it was "very possible" that it would find Warwick's tormentor.