The Bank of England today froze the financial assets of 19 terror suspects allegedly involved in a plot to detonate suicide bombs on multiple US-bound aircraft.

In a formal statement following a request by the Treasury, the Bank ordered banks and other financial institutions to "check whether they maintain any accounts or otherwise hold any funds, other financial assets, economic benefits and economic resources for the individuals named".

The Bank said any funds found should immediately be frozen and the findings reported.

The move, instigated under Article 4 of the United Nations-led Terrorism Order 2001 and Article 8 of the al-Qaeda and Taliban Order 2002, is aimed at preventing the movement of any funds that might be related to alleged terrorist activities.

The names of the 19 suspects, all of whom have UK addresses, as disclosed by the Bank, are Abdula Ali, Cossor Ali, Shazad Ali, Nabeel Hussain, Tanvir Hussain, Umair Hussain, Umar Islam, Waseem Kayani, Assan Khan, Waheed Khan, Osman Khatib, Abdul Patel, Tayib Rauf, Muhammed Saddique, Assad Sarwar, Ibrahim Savant, Amin Tariq, Shamin Uddin and Waheed Zaman.

The suspects range in ages from 17 to 35.

They are under suspicion of involvement in a terrorist plot, foiled yesterday, that was aimed at causing "mass murder on an unimagineable scale", according to the police and security services yesterday.

While 24 suspects have been arrested, the Bank has frozen the assets of only 19 of them. The Bank passed questions from Times Online on this to the Treasury, which said the list of names was compiled by the police and security services and passed on to the Government department for an instruction to the Bank to freeze assets.

A spokesman for the Treasury said: "We don't want to be drawn on the disparity. It's too early to say at this stage." He said it was also too early to speculate on the size of funds that might be involved.

The move comes as British Airways, which suffered a sharp fall in its share price yesterday on news of the alleged plot, said it was "hoping to operate a near-normal schedule" following yesterday's flights chaos.

The airline expects all long-haul flights from London Gatwick to operate, as well as all long-haul flights from London Heathrow with the exception of six services to the United States.

Shares in British Airways rose 4p, or more than 1 per cent to 374.25p.

Analysts at Collins Stewart, the broker, estimated that BA lost "less than £50 million in direct revenues yesterday and maintained its "buy" target arguing that yesterday's fall "looks overdone".

"History would suggest demand will be robust in the medium to long term. Passengers are battle-hardened to this type of threat. There have been a number of threats and shocks over recent years, and demand has always recovered quickly," Andrew Fitchie, an analyst at Collins Stewart, said.

BAA, the Spanish-owned operator of seven British airports, warned travellers that there would “severe disruption and cancellations” at Heathrow Airport, the country's busiest airport. It said there would be “some cancellations and disruption” at Gatwick, the second busiest.

World markets remained steady today, having yesterday stemmed sharp falls early on in the day to losses of less than 1 per cent by last night's close.

In London, the FTSE, down at one stage yesterday by more than 100 points, opened higher this morning and put on more than 11 points in the first few minutes of trading.

By early afternoon, the FTSE was down just 7.2 at 5816.2.

Continental markets also recovered some of their poise after falling yesterday. The DAX in Germany was 2.67 higher at 5,633.63, while the CAC-40 in France rose 15.69 to 4,992.33. In Spain, the IBEX-35 was up 15.4 at 11,825.8, with quoted airline Iberia firming after losing ground yesterday.

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