(Updates with latest prices) By Andy Bruce LONDON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Investors grew increasingly certain that the Bank of England would raise interest rates early next year after two of its officials on Thursday called for an early end to the central bank"s quantitative easing programme. Short-dated British government bond yields soared to their highest levels since the market turmoil of March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic first swept through Britain, after BoE Deputy Governor Dave Ramsden joined Michael Saunders in voting for an early end to the programme of bond purchases. Interest rate futures pointed to a 100% likelihood that the BoE will raise rates by February 2022, compared with just over 60% before Thursday"s announcement. "While we think it is premature to bring forward rate hike expectations to as early as February 2022, the balance of risks of an earlier hike relative to our Q2 assumption is seemingly rising," said Simon Harvey, senior market analyst at Monex Europe, a foreign exchange company. Gilt yields were up across the range of maturities and short- and medium-dated bonds saw the biggest increases in yield. The five-year gilt yield rose as high as 0.595%, levels last seen on a sustained basis in late 2019, up 11 basis points on the day. It was a similar story for the two-year gilt , the yield for which peaked at 0.389%. The last time these yields rose so sharply in the space of a single day was during March 2020"s turmoil when some investors were squeezed for cash at the start of the pandemic - ultimately prompting the BoE to start buying bonds to calm markets. Ten-year gilt yields rose 11 basis points on the day to 0.910 percent. With investors bringing forward bets for a British lift-off for interest rates, the yield spread between 10-year British and German government bonds rose to 116.5 basis points, up 3 bps on the day and marking the biggest gap since mid-March. The difference between the 10-year gilt yield and the higher 10-year U.S. Treasury yield narrowed to 48 basis points, the smallest gap since October last year. Dec long gilt future 126.45 (-1.05) Dec 2021 short sterling 99.82 (-0.04) Jun 2022 short sterling 99.42 (-0.12) 10-year gilt yield 0.91% (+11 bps) -------------------KEY MARKET DATA--------------------------- Long Gilt futures Gilt benchmark chain Short Stg futures Cash market quotes Deposit rates Sterling cross rates UK debt speedguide -------------------KEY MARKET REPORTS-------------------------- Gilts Sterling Euro Debt Dollar U.S. Treasuries Debt reports --------------------GILT STRIPS DATA ------------------------- Gilt strips data All gilt strips Gilt strips IO Gilt strips PO (Editing by Toby Chopra)