  The paper studies a method for solving elliptic partial differential
equations posed on hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^N$, $N=2,3$. The method allows
a surface to be given implicitly as a zero level of a level set function. A
surface equation is extended to a narrow-band neighborhood of the surface. The
resulting extended equation is a non-degenerate PDE and it is solved on a bulk
mesh that is unaligned to the surface. An unfitted finite element method is
used to discretize extended equations. Error estimates are proved for finite
element solutions in the bulk domain and restricted to the surface. The
analysis admits finite elements of a higher order and gives sufficient
conditions for archiving the optimal convergence order in the energy norm.
Several numerical examples illustrate the properties of the method.
