To understand why government ministers have been so frustrated by the absence of leadership from the Bank of England over the rescue of Northern Rock, it was only necessary to witness one exchange yesterday between MPs and Mervyn King.

As the Governor laboured to explain the triangular decision-making process that has involved the Bank, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority, Michael Fallon interrupted him: “Who is really in charge?” “What do you mean by ‘in charge’?” Mr King asked. The Governor’s performance yesterday was intellectually robust but politically feeble. His inquisitors were the exact opposite. When questioned by the rambling, ranting George Mudie, Mr King looked unnerved but faintly amused, as if he were being mugged by an angry man wielding a sponge.

As a result, Mr King’s first public appearance in more than a month of market turmoil was unsatisfactory. A host of questions were left unanswered, because they were never asked. He was not tested on his obstinate silence in recent weeks, he was not pressed as to why the Bank appeared to have reversed its position on providing funds to ease the three-month interbank market and he was not asked whether he would resign, let alone serve a second term.

When there was a discussion of why the talks between Lloyds TSB and Northern Rock broke down, Mr King said that he had supported rolling over the Bank’s line of support to any commercial buyer of the Rock last Sunday. This skirted the real question – why did the Bank stand in the way of the deal last week? But no one chased him up. Let’s hope the Select Committee proves worthy of its responsibilities when it quizzes the FSA’s Sir Callum McCarthy on October 9.

The Governor made a thoughtful submission about the reasons why the Bank of England cannot pull off a swift and discreet bailout of a bank these days. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, last week called for a return to “good old-fashioned banking”. Mr King’s point is that a handful of different laws make a good old-fashioned bank bailout impossible these days. The takeover code means the Bank cannot bring in a clutch of commercial bankers over a weekend and hammer out a deal. The 2005 Market Abuses Directive, he said, means that the Bank cannot provide a financial institution with support on the quiet. This was, perhaps, his most interesting point. Did the public really need to know that the Bank stood behind Northern Rock? Was the ensuing public panic really in the public interest?

But if the grilling of the Governor did not entirely shore up public confidence, it was not because Mr King appeared out of touch with politicians, but with bankers.

The Bank seems to have acted painfully slowly. The credit markets seized up on August 9; the Bank, the FSA and the Treasury held their first call on the most obvious potential casualty, Northern Rock, nearly a week later. Sir John Gieve, the deputy governor of the Bank and the linkman to the FSA, did not read the Rock’s interim statement.

The FSA, which is based in Canary Wharf, among all the big banks, is in touch with the commercial players in the market. The Bank, it seems, remains cloistered away in Threadneedle Street.

As Mr King and his colleagues referred repeatedly to the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding that defines the respective roles of the Bank, the FSA and the Treasury, you could hear a gathering argument for reunification of the Bank and the financial services regulator.

For, at the end of it, it was not clear who was in charge.

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