Police are monitoring the crisis in Iran and are "extremely alert" to any effect it may have in the UK, the country's most senior officer has said.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick told LBC that head of UK counter-terror policing Neil Basu has been in discussions with the security agencies and government bodies about the crisis.

Iran launched missile strikes against two US-Iraqi airbases at about 1.30am local time on Wednesday (10.30pm GMT). The attack was made after an American drone strike killed the county's top general Qassem Soleimani.

The rockets were aimed mainly at the Ain al-Asad airbase west of Baghdad. Another base in Erbil, Kurdistan, was also struck.

She told host Nick Ferrari: "It's a very worrying time clearly and we have lots of people of Iranian and Iraqi heritage and the surrounding areas in London, so there's lots for us to think about, lots for us to be alert to.

"What I can say is so far in London we have had no issues directly associated with this, there was one quite small protest.

"But of course we're extremely alert to what this could possibly lead to, but it's a very complex situation. At the moment there's absolutely no impact on London."

Dame Cressida, herself a former chief of counter-terrorism policing, said the force is "very adept" at measuring possible domestic threats linked to international events.

"Being the international city that we are, with the multiplicity of communities and also the threats that we have had to face over the years which change and morph all the time, we are very, very adept at seeing what's happening around the world, reaching out into communities and looking at the possible threats and risks that might come," she said.

"That's what we're doing on a day by day basis, and in response to this."

The UK's terror threat level remains at substantial, meaning an attack is likely.