It is feared that the dramatic 1.5% cut in interest rates to 3% will take some time to filter down to borrowers, if it ever fully does.

Most lenders quickly pulled their tracker mortgages, and it was believed that there would soon be very few left on the market.

Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at John Charcol, said: "We will have to wait several days before we see them re-emerge and know by how much lenders have hiked their rates above base rate."

Lloyds TSB and the nationalised Northern Rock bank had already withdrawn their tracker mortgages for repricing ahead of the Bank of England's cut.

Others, including Halifax, Abbey and Nationwide, had actually raised their tracker rates - by up to 0.5% in some cases - during the past week.

Lloyds TSB was quick to announce that it was reducing its SVR by 1.5% to 5% from December 1, although its pledge that it will never be more than 2% above base left it with little choice.

All other lenders failed to announce a reduction, instead saying their rates were under review. Only 57 of the 96 lenders have passed on a proportion of October's cut.

Banks are wary of committing themselves to interest rates cuts while the Libor (the London Interbank Offered Rate) - the rate at which banks lend to each other - remains high and while jitters persist following the recent financial turmoil.

And experts fear banks will not pass on all of the interest rate cut to customers - if they did, some homeowners could save up to £230 a month.

The key rate that homeowners want to see reduction in is the Standard Variable Rate (SVR), which is supposed to fluctuate in line with the Bank of England's base rate.

But unlike tracker rates, this does not automatically happen - the onus is on the banks to cut their rates as the Bank of England does. Banks tends to be quicker to respond to Bank of England rate hikes than cuts.

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