MPs on the House of Commons home affairs select committee are to conduct an enquiry into the rioting in London amid fears that a "toxic mix" of poor policing and social deprivation are to blame for the worst violence in the capital in decades.

As the London mayor, Boris Johnson, cut short his family holiday in North America to return home, MPs from across the Commons said they would be asking how the Metropolitan police allowed the streets of London to become lawless.

James Clappison, a Conservative member of the committee, said: "I would support any moves to take evidence about what has taken place – to ventilate the issues. I don't want to rush to judgment without knowing all the facts. But obviously there would be a concern that lawlessness on this scale has broken out. We would want to look at how this came about and what can be done to prevent a recurrence. It is worrying."

The London mayor, who faced criticism for refusing to cut short his holiday, will return to London by lunchtime today to tour the scenes of violence. Kit Malthouse, the deputy mayor, defended Johnson's decision not to return earlier.

"Boris has been doing media where he can, he has been constantly in touch on the phone," Malthouse told Channel 4 News. "He realised the time had come for him to come back and show solidarity with the communities affected."

David Cameron was on Monday night still refusing to cancel his family holiday in Tuscany, where he is embarking on a second week of tennis lessons at his rented villa. The PM is due to return home next Monday.

Amid mounting criticism from government backbenchers that senior government figures were away at the same time, the home secretary Theresa May cut short her holiday in Switzerland. May condemned the "sheer criminality" on the streets of London.

Nick Clegg, who had always planned to return to London from his holiday in France on Monday, has visited the scenes of the rioting in Tottenham. The deputy prime minister, who spoke to shopkeepers on Tottenham High Road whose businesses were destroyed, condemned the violence as "completely unacceptable".

But he added: "We need to start talking together to identify everything that happened so we can rebuild, not just physically but socially. I should stress I don't regard this as a fleeting visit. I think the government has to engage actively at all levels and on an ongoing basis because clearly this is something that leaves big scars and we need to work together to start to heal those scars."

One veteran Labour MP, who sits on the home affairs select committee, warned that a "toxic mix" of poor policing of black and minority ethnic communities and social deprivation was a key factor in fuelling the violence.

David Winnick, the MP for Walsall North, said: "The responsibility of parliamentarians – and this has been led by my colleague the Tottenham MP David Lammy – is to condemn without hesitation the violence, the outright hooliganism and the copycat efforts being made."

But Winnick added: "The fact that hooligans have climbed on the bandwagon does not alter the fact that despite the progress which undoubtedly has been made between the police and communities where there is a relatively high percentage of black people, relations are not as good as they should be. There are accusations, we have heard it on the home affairs select committee, that black people are stopped and searched more often. That can hardly be done on the basis that they are terrorist suspects. If you add to that continuing deprivation, growing unemployment, a feeling of lack of opportunity, it makes a pretty toxic mix."

Mark Reckless, a Conservative member of the home affairs select committee, said: "I have been really surprised by the scale of this and its persistence. I am really disappointed because I thought we had advanced so far in terms of dealing with these types of issues – having proper investigations of shootings, having much more caution in the use of lethal force, having much better links with communities where the police have previously had issues. I just hope this is not going to set back community relations and the vast strides I thought the Met had made."

Reckless, the MP for Rochester and Strood, welcomed the Met's apology to the family of Mark Duggan for the tardiness of the police and the IPCC in responding to their needs after Thursday's shooting. "I welcome the Met taking responsibility so proactively. A lot of these issues are much better dealt with by the police taking responsibility for what the people closest to it think may have gone wrong, rather than waiting months or years to have a legalistic process. If they are admitting some fault early, even on a limited basis, that is really positive both for community relations [and] to ensure that they are not wasting vast amounts of money on legalistic enquiries."

Nick de Bois, the Tory MP for Enfield North who witnessed the disturbances in his constituency on Sunday night, said the violence could not be blamed on social deprivation. De Bois said: "When police dispersed groups, they [the rioters] ran up the neighbouring residential streets, did a bit of terrifying of residents. But what angered everyone was they jumped into their nice Golf GTIs and tore off round the corner, parked somewhere else, came back and did some damage, and loaded their cars up with whatever they could loot. It wasn't a question of social justice. These guys had nice cars, nice mobiles."

De Bois said he was glad the home secretary and deputy prime minister had returned. "People do look for leadership and you need visibility in leadership. Senior members of the government need to be very visible. I am pleased that the deputy prime minister and Theresa May are back. I don't think the prime minister should be rushing back. I don't like that the behaviour of thugs and criminals mean that the prime minister or anyone else needs to come back immediately. We lacked depth because we had three senior cabinet ministers away at one time. That has been rectified."

The weekend's riots and looting may have serious repercussions on long-term efforts to regenerate some of London's struggling high streets, business leaders have warned.

As businesses begin to tally the cost of stolen goods and damaged stores the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has warned many of the shops affected may never reopen, while other firms may rethink their investment plans for areas such as Tottenham and Wood Green.

Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, which was affected by widespread lootingthe one store in the area.

"Tesco were up and running by Monday morning – you can see the damage but they're determined to keep trading," she said. "It's difficult to tell what the longer-term situation is because last night was so unusual. The looting was co-ordinated and organised. This is a type of organised crime we've never seen before. Businesses are angry as their property has been damaged, but people seem calmer today."

Lord Harris of Peckham, owner of the Carpetright chain, an outlet of which was burned down in Saturday's Tottenham riots, told an interviewer: "It has damaged my business but big companies can withstand it. It's the little entrepreneurs, people who have greengrocers and clothes shops I really do feel sorry for. Who is going to shop there now?"

This view was echoed by the BRC, which said rioters had defeated any hoped-for objective. "In the short term this is bad for the locals who work in or rely on the services of the businesses that have been affected," said spokesman Richard Dodd. "Longer term, a proportion of these stores were struggling already. They will have to look at their future in the area – many will reopen but some won't, which will harm the areas' prospects."