Financial incentives and imbursement of memorial service expenditures are two suggestions being proposed to motivate people to donate human organs and tissue.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is asking the public if it is right to use monetary incentives to boost donations of organs, eggs and sperm.

In the UK, paying for most kinds of organs and tissue is illicit.

The public discussion will last 12 weeks and the council's results will come out in autumn 2011.

It will discover methods of increasing donations from living people of physical stuff like blood or sperm, plus means to motivate additional people to sign in for the donor register and declare that their organs can be used by others after their death.

In addition to money incentives or donations towards interment expenses, other alternatives consist of priority for the donor if they need a transplant later in life, the imbursement of more generous expenditures and the issuing of certificates or "thank you" memos to the donor or donor's family.

Demand for organ donors has boosted in recent years and now surpasses supply. This is because of an ageing population and enhancement in medicine, which indicate that more people can gain from transplants.

Demand for sperm and egg donations has also increased, owing to new treatments and methods to cure sterility.

Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern, who is chairing the Council's working party on this topic, said, "Offering payment or other incentives may encourage people to take risks or go against their beliefs in a way they could not have otherwise done".