Up to 1.5 million people could be addicted to prescription drugs and the problem must be dealt with urgently, a group of MPs has said.
The Commons Home Affairs Committee wants GP surgeries to start collecting anonymous data.
The MPs also want to make sure more is done to stop patients visiting several doctors to feed their addiction.
Doctors' leaders said identifying people addicted to prescription drugs was not straightforward.
'Still unquantified'The MPs believed more people may be addicted to sleeping tablets, painkillers and anti-depressants than to illegal drugs.
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Keith Vaz: "Patients are shopping around between GPs"
But they said the abuse of such drugs was taking place "in the shadows" and much better data was required.
Committee chairman Keith Vaz said the extent of the problem was "still unquantified".
"GPs are not collating data about how many people they suspect are abusing the system," he told BBC One's Breakfast programme.
"If they start doing that and then report it amongst colleagues, that's a very important first step in trying to prevent the abuse of prescription drugs."
The committee said the NHS must do more to tackle "doctor-shopping" where an addict might visit multiple surgeries, perhaps as a temporary patient, to get more prescription drugs.
And it said authorities should be more prepared to prosecute - particularly in those cases where health professionals were supplying prescription drugs when there was no medical need.
'Devastating condition'Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the BMA's GP committee, said: "GPs already play a key role in treating patients in the community suffering from the impact of drug addiction.
"It is a devastating medical condition that ruins lives, families and communities and it is right that we continuously look at how we can improve drug addiction treatment.
"However, the identification of individuals addicted to prescription drugs is not straightforward and whilst we should do all we can to support their withdrawal from such drugs, we also need to ensure that patients are confident that their sensitive personal data will remain secure."
He said any data collection exercise should be "properly considered, piloted and tested before it is implemented".
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