Alistair Darling called on his Group of Seven (G7) counterparts to forge a “quick” deal to boost the transparency of global financial institutions.

But as the Chancellor toured the old trading floor of the Tokyo stock exchange, illuminated by electronic displays of violently plunging Japanese shares, he scotched hopes that the world's richest nations would agree on any concerted fiscal, or monetary bailout for markets ravaged by the sub-prime fallout.

Better oversight powers for the International Monetary Fund and measures to improve credit rating agencies were, he said, “absolutely important” for governments across the world. Later, however, he played down the prospects that the G7 talks would see any decisive move, bemoaning the fact that the necessary international agreements “take far too long”.

Mr Darling said the meeting would focus on giving the financial markets a better early warning system of crisis. “It is quite clear that some of the problems that have arisen could have been prevented,” he said.

Mr Darling said the world's central banks were taking the right decisions. “The first thing is that conditions in different countries are not the same,” he said. “The actions that the US Federal Reserve and President Bush have taken are appropriate to the US. Other countries ... will take appropriate action for their own economies.”

The IMF last week slashed its forecasts for global growth this year and most governments can see the need for a display of unity at a potentially transformational time. But finance ministers have made it clear that there is only limited common ground.

There is plenty of tension in the air over the effects of a plummeting dollar, and there is, say sources at the Japanese Ministry of Finance, an undercurrent of feeling that the US deserves to solve the sub-prime debacle alone.

The German and Italian ministers of finance are expected to lead calls for fiercer rules on banking risk management and capital adequacy - calls patently aimed at Wall Street. The recent idea of using co-ordinated tax cuts as a form of economic stimulus, for example, has also caused a noisy split of opinion, and thought of a concerted monetary response has been undermined by conflicting inflationary pressures in Europe and Japan.

The only glimmer of hope of some flexibility on the rate-cutting issue was offered on Thursday by Jean Claude Trichet, president of the ECB, who acknowledged only that economic uncertainty was “unusually high”.

The problem is that Japan offers very little as host. Fukushiro Nukaga spoke of the need to work together to stabilise markets, but his is an economy that took 14 years to recover from financial crisis and may now be the first G7 nation to tumble back into recession.

Japan's own government is in unprecedented political chaos, the country's second-biggest city, Osaka, is rumbling towards bankruptcy and Mr Darling's visit to the Tokyo stock exchange unwittingly illustrated its weakness: a technical glitch closed down all afternoon trading in one of the market's most important futures contracts.

Meanwhile, the diplomatic importance of Beijing grows. Although representatives of China, South Korea, Russia and Indonesia will attend an “outreach” dinner on Saturday night, the key debate on the valuation of the yuan will have been held earlier in the day among seven nations with only limited insight into Beijing's thinking.

The one area where Japan may provide leadership is in efforts to launch a multibillion-dollar climate change fund. Along with Mr Nukaga and Mr Darling, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson completes a trio of leaders who believe that the G7 should help developing nations to invest in cleaner technologies. The issue, said Mr Darling, would be of “critical importance” on the G7 agenda.

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