The whereabouts of more than 100,000 mobile phone users have been tracked in an attempt to build a comprehensive picture of human movements.

The study concludes that humans are creatures of habit, mostly visiting the same few spots time and time again.

Most people also move less than 10km on a regular basis, according to the study published in the journal Nature.

The results could be used to help prevent outbreaks of disease or forecast traffic, the scientists said.

Location data is increasingly used by forensic scientists to identify the movements of criminal suspects.

For example, the technique was used by Italian police to capture Hussain Osman, one of four men jailed for the failed suicide bombings in London on 21 July.

Commercial products also exist, allowing parents to track children or for friends to receive alerts when they are in a similar location.

These types of services and projects will continue to grow, Dr Webb believes, as researchers and businesses find new ways to use the mobile phone networks.

"There are so many sensors that you could conceivably attach to a phone that you could do all kinds of monitoring activities with," he said.

For example, Nokia have put forward an idea to attach sensors to phones that could report back on air quality. The project would allow a large location-specific database to be built very quickly.

Ofcom is also planning to use mobiles to collect data about the quality of wi-fi connections around the UK.