Apple is recalling 1.8 million batteries manufactured by Sony due to fears of fire.

Mirroring Dell’s decision to recall over four million Sony-manufactured batteries recently, Apple’s move affects owners of the iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 laptops sold between October 2003 and August 2006.

According to the recall statement published on the Consumer Products Safety Commission website: “These lithium-ion batteries can overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers.

"Apple has received nine reports of batteries overheating, including two reports of minor burns from handling overheated computers and other reports of minor property damage. No serious injuries were reported.”

Around 700,000 of the batteries were sold outside the US, so UK users are being urged to check if their Apple laptops are among the potential fire hazards.

As with the recalled batteries in Dell laptops, Sony is taking the brunt of the cost of replacement.

In a statement the company said: "At this time, Sony anticipates no further recalls of battery packs using these particular battery cells. The recall arises because, on rare occasions, microscopic metal particles in the recalled battery cells may come into contact with other parts of the battery cell, leading to a short circuit within the cell.

"Typically, a battery pack will simply power off when a cell short circuit occurs. However, under certain rare conditions, an internal short circuit may lead to cell overheating and potentially flames. The potential for this to occur can be affected by variations in the system configurations found in different notebook computers."

Sony estimates that the cost of this fiasco will run as high as £138m.

When we contacted Sony representatives, they were reluctant to discuss how this series of recalls will affect relationships with its large scale customers. It also supplies batteries to other laptop manufacturers - but would not say which companies.

Equally, it said Sony branded laptops were not at risk from having batteries that could overheat and catch fire. But the company would make no further comment.

Of further concern is the possibly detrimental environmental impact resulting from the concentrated disposal of millions of notebook batteries. Sony said it had no immediate comment to make on this issue.

You can check your Apple serial numbers online to see if you have a laptop at risk of overheating.

Additional reporting: Marc Delehanty