Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has said that the financial market upheaval could continue into next year, despite the Fed's efforts under his successor Ben Bernanke in March to revive the credit markets that have reduced the volatility somewhat.

Addresing a conference in Johannesburg via satellite, Greenspan said, ''Things do at this particular stage look a little better. But I would caution that we have seen false starts before.'' He said his fear was that the crisis would stay for ''a good number of months'', or into next year.

Current Fed chairman Bernanke has also convened a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Economists expect the meeting with leave the benchmark interest rate untouched at two per cent, as it has seen seven cuts since September 2007.

Though the cuts Fed officials are trying to revive economic growth at a time when inflationary pressure is rising on account of surging commodity prices.

Greenspan said that this was the ''most complex'' of all the financial crises in over 50 years, and suggested that the chances of a US slipping into a recession were at more than 50 per cent.

He said data suggests that the US could be on the brink of a recession, and the coming year would be very sluggish, marked by a highly volatile oil market.

He said that the March actions of the Fed have reduced the threat of a severe recession, though an economic rebound in the US is not the ''immediate outlook''.

Labelling the housing crisis as an ''international problem'', Greenspan said that there was no data to support the argument that the housing problems in the US were on account of interest rates being too low during his tenure as the chairman of the Federal Reserve.