MySQL ODBC Error: The authentication module ejabberd_auth_odbc returned an error

Hi
I recently installed ejabberd on a ubuntu server, installed the required mysql .beam files, and have the database setup. However when I try to register a user by running command: ejabberdctl register user localhost password
i get this error:
E(<4792.617.0>:ejabberd_auth:276) : The authentication module ejabberd_auth_odbc returned an error
when checking user "user" in server "localhost"
Error message: {timeout,
{p1_fsm,sync_send_event,
[<4792.311.0>,
{sql_cmd,
{sql_query,
["select password from users where username='",
"user","';"]},
{1444,815795,346670}},
60000]}}

Any idea what I need to look into?
Thanks