Christoph Weil, senior economist at Commerzbank, added that inflation in the first half of next year was likely to be “significantly higher” than the ECB had previously feared and take longer to return to target. 

“Even if the rate is distorted upwards by special effects, it nevertheless shows that underlying price pressures have increased noticeably as a result of the supply bottlenecks,” he said.

The price shock is widening European splits between the inflation-wary Bundesbank, whose outgoing president Jens Weidmann has warned that prices are running out of control, and southern European states urging central bankers to keep their foot on the accelerator. 

Spain’s central bank chief, Pablo Hernandez de Cos, warned against premature removal of support despite inflation hitting a 30-year high of 5.6pc, claiming that prices would ease “very significantly” next year. 

Despite the inflation shock, Europe has been brought to its knees by a resurgence of the virus, which triggered a full lockdown in Austria and Slovakia as well as new curbs in Germany and Netherlands even before the emergence of the new omicron variant. 

Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect the new restrictions to dent eurozone growth by a cumulative 0.4 percentage points over the current quarter and the first three months of next year. That is equivalent to some £45bn wiped off the region’s £11.3 trillion economy.

However, the investment bank added that if the new variant caused tougher measures the economic blow could be as much as £150bn.

It warned: “We see downside risks to this base case, given the risk of continued pressure on hospital capacity and the uncertainty implied by the Omicron variant. In our downside scenario, we assume a return to nationwide lockdowns for three months and assume a higher sensitivity of activity to lockdowns. In such a scenario, we would expect a cumulative hit of 1.4pc to euro area GDP.”