Two men, 34 and 44, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, were arrested on Sunday morning as they arrived near the Belgian coast, said the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Twelve people, believed to be Albanian, were also detained.

A third man, 46, was arrested in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

Investigators believe the three men are part of an organised gang smuggling people from Europe to the UK.

The arrests in Belgium, near Nieuwpoort, were a joint operation between federal police and the NCA.

"We believe this operation has disrupted a suspected organised crime group involved in bringing people to the UK illegally," said NCA Branch Commander Colin Williams.

"Attempts to reach the UK by small boat are extremely dangerous and people smugglers do not care about the safety of their passengers.

Officials have noted a surge in illegal migration from Albania, which has been blamed on criminal gangs having a "foothold" in northern France.

Nearly 1,000 people arrived in small boats on Saturday alone, according to government figures.

Unseasonably warm weather has seen the kind of settled conditions that encourages crossings.

There's growing pressure for the government to do more to stop the boats and deal quicker with a 100,000 backlog of asylum applications for people already here.

Nearly 40,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year, some 10,000 more than for the whole of 2021.

An immigration holding centre in Manston, Kent, is also housing more than double the number it's meant to in conditions the Refugee Council has called "inhumane".

Hundreds more people were moved there on Sunday following a petrol bomb attack at the Border Force migrant centre in Dover.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been accused of failing to help solve Manston's overcrowding problem by reportedly refusing to approve hotel transfers and ignoring legal advice that the government is illegally detaining people there.