Retailers could be forced to take cigarettes off display, under government plans to crack-down on smoking.

Shopkeepers could be made to sell tobacco products from under the counter - one of a string of measures being considered by misters to curb the take-up of smoking among young people.

The proposals also include a ban on cigarette vending machines in pubs and restaurants open to under 18-year-olds, and measures that make it easier to sell nicotine replacement gums and patches.

The government says people who start smoking at age 15 are three times more likely to die of smoking-related cancer than those who do not take up the habit until their late 20s.

Health minister Dawn Primarolo told the BBC: "We understand that smoking causes cancer - it's a major killer.

"We want to protect our young people, so we have to look at all of our responsibilities - retailer, government, producer, families, individuals, how we can discourage them from starting to smoke in the first place."

The proposals, the subject of a public consultation to be launched in May, are the next stage in the government's strategy to reduce the number of people who smoke.

Some 22 percent of people aged 16 and over smoke in Britain, a figure that the government aims to cut to less than 20 percent by 2010.

In July last year, England followed the rest of the UK in banning smoking in enclosed public places. Bans were introduced in Scotland in 2006, and in Wales and Northern Ireland in 2007.