British officials were investigating a cyberattack Saturday on the country's Parliament after discovering "unauthorized attempts to access parliamentary user accounts."

A spokeswoman for the House of Commons said the incident affected lawmakers and other parliamentary staff's ability to log on its system and use their emails. It was not immediately clear how many people were affected or what the extent of the damage was.

A statement said that remote email access for members has been disabled in order to protect the network.

"We have systems in place to protect member and staff accounts and are taking the necessary steps to protect our systems," it said.

Liberal Democrat Chris Rennard said on Twitter that urgent messages should be sent by text message because parliamentary emails may not work remotely.

The National Cyber Security Center and the National Crime Agency are looking into the incident.