The female giant panda Tian Tian has been placed on 24-hour surveillance after the latest hormone tests revealed she could be pregnant, Edinburgh Zoo has said.

From today, the panda will be constantly monitored and the zoo's team of panda keepers will have access to CCTV footage in their homes to look for signs of labour such as restless behaviour and bleating.

Chinese panda keeper Haiping Hu, from the China Conservation and Research Centre (CCRCGP), arrived in Edinburgh on Saturday and will be on hand to assist if a cub or cubs are born during the next two weeks.

If Tian Tian is pregnant, there is the possibility that she may not carry to the full term. Her body may reabsorb any foetuses or reject them.

Staff at Edinburgh Zoo say that to keep her relaxed she has access to her off-show area where her cubbing box is located, and she is spending most of her time there.

Additional insulation has been placed in her enclosure to reduce noise.

Miss Hu has experience of many panda births, especially the birth of twins, and for the next two weeks she will be available to assist the team in Edinburgh.

New incubators have been placed in the panda nursery and the keepers are prepared to work in shifts to provide 24-hour care for a cub or cubs that may need to be hand-reared.

Iain Valentine, director of giant pandas for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said: "What we are seeing in Tian Tian's hormones is encouraging, but we still cannot guarantee a pregnancy or successful birth.

"If indeed she is pregnant, this is an extremely risky time for panda pregnancies.

"Female giant pandas can actually reabsorb any foetuses or reject them if pregnant. If she is pregnant and carries to full term, we believe a cub or cubs could be born any time over the next two weeks. Although there are no certainties, we must err on the side of caution and be on red alert from today.

"Tian Tian's current routine is to spend a lot of her day sleeping in the cubbing box in her off-show indoor enclosure, though she does tend to come outside for a stroll and stretch on her climbing frame in the afternoons.

"We are keeping the lights switched off for most of the day inside to help mimic the atmosphere of a den that she would seek in the wild."

Tian Tian and Yang Guang arrived at Edinburgh Zoo amid worldwide interest on December 4 2011 after a 5,000-mile flight from China.

Before their arrival it had been 17 years since giant pandas had lived in the UK.

It was a five-year effort to bring the eight-year-old breeding pair to the zoo where they will stay until 2021 at least.

A report by Scottish Enterprise estimates Tian Tian and Yang Guang will generate almost £28 million in visitor spending for the Edinburgh economy alone during their 10-year stay, with an extra £19 million spent in the wider Scottish economy.

Any cub that is born at Edinburgh Zoo will be the property of the People's Republic of China and when it reaches two years old it will be taken back to China, to replicate the age they would naturally disperse in the wild.

Giant pandas start to show signs of labour 24 hours before the process begins.

There is a potential that Tian Tian would give birth to twins and if she does it is likely she will reject one of the cubs, as pandas are only able to rear one at a time. The second cub would be cared for by keepers.

Zoo bosses had hoped Tian Tian and her male companion at Edinburgh Zoo, Yang Guang, would mate naturally when she came into season but animal experts ruled out putting them together after assessing her behaviour.

She was artificially inseminated in April using semen from Yang Guang and Bao Bao, a ''genetically important'' panda who died at Berlin Zoo last year.

If a cub or cubs are born in Edinburgh a blood test is expected to be carried out by conservation geneticists and confirmed by the laboratory at the Scottish zoo.

In keeping with Chinese tradition any cubs that are born would not be named until they are 100 days old and would only go on display on January 1 2014.

Iain Valentine, director of Giant Pandas for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said: "We have now entered the window of the possible time that Tian Tian could give birth.

"Keepers are monitoring Tian Tian on a 24-hour basis. They are able to log in from their computers and phones at home just to make sure everything is ok with her, and the keeper from China has now arrived to support us. We are ready.

"About 24 hours before she gives birth she will become quite restless, start moving around, and then will sit down, her waters will break and then quite soon after that she will give birth.

"The birth process can be over quite quickly because the cub itself is very small. It could take minutes. It is down to the timing and her being comfortable. The cub is only 100 grams, so she doesn't have to strain too much to give birth.

"This is the point where things could go wrong. Her body could reabsorb the cub or cubs, or if she does give birth the cub could be stillborn. So this is actually the trickiest time for pandas.

"We will keep our fingers crossed."

Tony Bradford, Visitor Experience coordinator at Edinburgh Zoo, said: "Nothing is 100% yet, but it is still getting very exciting.

"Tian Tian is doing well, she is spending less and less time in public view, but visitors are being very understanding.

"It will be incredible. It won't just be the first pandas born in Edinburgh Zoo, it will be the first pandas born in the country.

"As a non-profit organisation the pandas arriving have helped us do a lot more conservation work and a cub is just going to help us do more."

He said of male panda Yang Guang: "He won't have any contact with them. In the wild a male panda would have nothing to do with the upbringing of the cubs. We do have a metal grate, which joins the two areas so they can see each other, but that will be about it."

He said that after two years the panda cub or cubs will go back to China.

He said: "All pandas, no matter where they are born in the world, are always the property of China. That is just the way it works.

"They will go back and join the conservation programmes over there, either with the breading programmes or the reintroduction programmes, to get the pandas back into the wild."