Dense induced subgraphs of dense bipartite graphs

We prove that every bipartite graph of sufficiently large average degree has either a $K_{t,t}$-subgraph or an induced subgraph of average degree at least $t$ and girth at least $6$. We conjecture that "$6$" can be replaced by "$k$", which strengthens a conjecture of Thomassen. In support of this conjecture, we show that it holds for regular graphs.