Western countries should close their markets to sales of Chinese trains because China's domestic market is closing to outside suppliers, says the head of one of the world's largest rolling stock builders.

In a Financial Times interview, Philippe Mellier, chief executive of Paris-based Alstom Transport, also claimed that Chinese companies were offering trains for export using technology derived from western suppliers. Such technology is usually supplied on condition it not be used outside China.

However, after a period when China signed contracts with several suppliers from other parts of the world to transfer technology to itself, it is gradually insisting new trains be entirely domestically designed and built.

Chinese manufacturers are also increasingly seeking orders in the European heartland of Alstom, Bombardier Transportation, the world number one, and Siemens, the number three. One has already won a small order to build trains for the UK market, while another was included in a shortlist of bidders for an order by the UK's Department for Transport on December 22.

Mr Mellier said: "We're starting to see Chinese companies answering tenders around the world with Chinese freight locomotives, some of them being based on transferred technology." A similar process was under way with tenders to supply metro cars, he added.