Martha Lane Fox, the founder of the online booking website Lastminute.com, has been seriously injured in a road accident in Morocco, it emerged today.

Ms Lane Fox, 30, was reportedly taken to a hospital with suspected haemorrhaging and was said to have undergone emergency surgery.

The multimillionairess was involved in an accident in the seaside tourist town of Essaouira, near Marrakesh, early yesterday evening and taken to a nearby hospital.

She was believed to have been on holiday with three friends when the accident happened.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said today: "We are aware of a British national seriously injured in a road traffic accident near Marrakesh in Morocco. We are offering consular assistance."

The coastal resort of Essaouira, founded in the 16th century by the Portuguese, is popular with artists and independent travellers.

Ms Lane Fox became one of the faces of the dotcom boom of the late 1990s after cofounding Lastminute.com.

Brent Hoberman had the idea for the site after he found he never had time to plan holidays and was always trying to arrange something at the last minute. He and Ms Lane Fox raised £600,000 and launched the site in 1998.

In 2000 Ms Lane Fox had a paper fortune of £40m but after the company's share price crashed that was cut to £9m. Now her stake in the company is valued at around £23m.

At the time of the business's 2000 flotation, she admitted to working days that finished at 2am but she quit the day-to-day running of Lastminute.com last year.