Average house prices across Britain rebounded last month to rise at twice the pace seen in January, according to a key property market survey that raised new doubt over the true impact of three increases in interest rates since last August.

House prices jumped during February by 0.7 per cent, up from the 0.3 per cent gain seen in the previous month, according to latest estimates from Nationwide Building Society.

The renewed acceleration in the market detected by the leading lender also pushed the annual rate of house price inflation back into double figures. This climbed back to 10.1 per cent last month, from 9.3 per cent in January, although the February figure was flattered by comparison with the same month last year, when Nationwide reported that prices actually fell.

Nationwide insisted that despite the apparent resilience of the housing market in the face of higher borrowing costs, the Bank of England’s interest rate increases were being felt.

Fionnuala Earley, the lender’s chief economist, argued that higher base rates were starting to “take their toll” on buyers’ demand.

Evidence of the impact of higher rates remains tentative for now, however. So far, the main indication that the Bank’s actions have cooled the market have emerged from weakening mortgage approvals numbers for December and January, which are regarded as a good gauge of future trends.

However, there is so far little firm evidence of house prices themselves slowing. The persistent strength of the market at the end of last year was underlined again by separate Land Registry figures that showed a rise in prices of 0.9 per cent in January, leaving these up 7.7 per cent from a year earlier.

Land Registry data is seen as more backward-looking than surveys from Nationwide and the Halifax bank, as it is based on prices for completed sales, rather than when mortgages are agreed, and so reflects the start of less recent sales.

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