Police said on Monday they had arrested two men after launching a murder inquiry into the deaths of a teenager and her grandmother who were killed in a suspected arson attack in east London.

Pauline Adams, 57, and her granddaughter Shannen Vickers, 17, died in a fire at their three-bedroom flat in Bethnal Green in the early hours of Sunday.

Their bodies were found in a rear bedroom of the flat on the fifth floor of a seven-storey block.

"We are now satisfied this was arson and thus a murder inquiry is under way," police said in a statement.

Detectives said a 19-year-old man had handed himself in at an east London police station on Sunday while an 18-year-old was arrested in Harlow, Essex, shortly before midnight.