Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said it was "inherently logical" to cut down the number of flights taken by police officers.

He was responding to London Assembly's Green Party Member, Jenny Jones, who said that £8.2m was spent by the police on air travel within the UK last year.

Ms Jones, who is also the Mayor's green transport advisor, said 6,000 tonnes of CO2 was released by the flights.

She suggested that officers could take the train instead of flying.

Sir Ian was questioned during the London Assembly's plenary session on Wednesday.

Last year the Met undertook 169 official flights on short-haul journeys - 120 to Manchester, 33 to Liverpool and 16 to Leeds, Ms Jones said.

"If you are spending over £8m on flights then there are bound to be a few which can be switched to a more environmentally friendly alternative.

"Sending specialist police officers to help Tsunami victims is one thing; flying from London to Southampton is going to be a lot harder to justify," she said.

Sir Ian said: "I have not had the issue put to me in those terms before. What you're saying is inherently logical. I will take it away and we will do something about it."

Earlier, Mayor Ken Livingstone agreed to "off-set" emissions from official air travel by the police.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said the flights "were a reasonable alternative bearing in mind operational demands".

Seems like a bit of a joke to me. Policing will suffer. Air travel is quick (and it is cheap) and it is efficient to use. It's ridiculous to suggest that cutting down 167 officers would have any significant effect on the environment considering Heathrow alone gets 70 million passengers a year, almost 200,000 a day. Ridiculous!

Politicians sticking their noses in once again where they are not wanted in an attempt to impress people.