diff --git a/release/check_release_version.py b/release/check_release_version.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..abf1e403f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/release/check_release_version.py
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+# Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+
+# DeepSpeed Team
+
+import argparse
+from packaging import version as pkg_version
+
+parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+
+parser.add_argument("--new_version", type=str, help="The new version being published.")
+
+args = parser.parse_args()
+
+new_version = pkg_version.parse(args.new_version)
+
+with open('./version.txt') as fd:
+    current_version = pkg_version.parse(fd.read())
+
+# Valid version are those where the major/minor/micro are incremented by no more than one from the existing release, and the less significant values are reset to 0.
+valid_major_update = pkg_version.Version(f'{current_version.major + 1}.0.0')
+valid_minor_update = pkg_version.Version(f'{current_version.major}.{current_version.minor + 1}.0')
+valid_micro_update = pkg_version.Version(
+    f'{current_version.major}.{current_version.minor}.{current_version.micro + 1}')
+
+valid_versions = [valid_major_update, valid_minor_update, valid_micro_update]
+
+if new_version not in valid_versions:
+    raise Exception(f'{new_version} is an invalid version. Valid versions are {valid_versions}.\n')
diff --git a/release/release.sh b/release/release.sh
index 3e1425737..a4d38674d 100644
--- a/release/release.sh
+++ b/release/release.sh
@@ -25,6 +25,13 @@ if [ "${version}" != `cat version.txt` ]; then
     exit 1
 fi
 
+echo "checking that the version is valid"
+python release/check_release_version.py --new_version ${version}
+if [ $? != 0 ]; then
+    echo 'please check the version number selected'
+    exit 1
+fi
+
 python -c "import twine"
 if [ $? != 0 ]; then
     echo 'please install twine via pip'