Car giant Toyota will hit back tomorrow at suggestions that its electronics systems caused the sudden acceleration problems that led to the recall of more than eight million vehicles.

The Japanese manufacturer will hold an event in which it will seek to debunk a critic who claims faulty accelerator pedals did not cause the sudden surge.

Toyota will aim to duplicate the scenario created by David Gilbert, a professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Prof Gilbert told the US Congress on February 23 that he was able to recreate sudden acceleration in a Toyota vehicle by manipulating its electronics.

The company is calling in the director of Stanford University's Centre for Automotive Research to try to disprove the claims.

Toyota said Stanford professor Chris Gerdes would show that the malfunctions Prof Gilbert produced "are completely unrealistic under real-world conditions and can easily be reproduced on a wide range of vehicles made by other manufacturers".

Stanford's Centre for Automotive Research is funded by a group of car companies, including Toyota.

Toyota has also hired a consulting firm, Exponent, to study whether electronic problems could cause unintended acceleration. It released an interim report that has found no link between the two.

Tomorrow's event is part of a broad campaign by the world's biggest car maker to discredit critics, repair its damaged reputation and begin restoring trust in its vehicles.

On Friday, a congressional committee questioned Toyota's efforts to find the causes of the problems. It also questioned whether the company had sufficiently investigated the issue of electronic defects.

Toyota executives will also address recall issues at its annual suppliers meeting in Kentucky on Tuesday.