After a ten-hour journey on a Continental Airlines jet, David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby were handed over to American law enforcement officials in Houston, Texas, amid claim and counter-claim of human rights abuses.

The former bankers are due to appear in court again today aftr last night’s processing formalities to discover whether they will be granted bail or whether they face months in custody pending their trial.

The men are charged with conspiring with executives of the collapsed American energy giant Enron to cheat NatWest, their former employer, out of £11 million. They all deny the charges.

The men face a wait of up to two years before the complex fraud case is likely to come to trial, a daunting prospect if they are remanded in custody. If they are eventually found guilty they could be jailed for more than 20 years.

After losing a bitter and lengthy battle to persuade the British Government to block their extradition and have the trial held in Britain, the men were taken to Gatwick to board Flight CO35 to Houston yesterday morning.

Shackled to US air marshals, the three were ushered on to the Boeing 777 aircraft before any other passengers and seated at the back. They wore grim expressions throughout the ten-hour flight and talked little to each other or the guards that sat beside them.

Despite the length of the flight, the extradited men — who were not handcuffed or shackled in the customary fashion — did not listen to music or watch any in-flight movies, although one was seen dipping into a book. One of the federal marshals, however, played on a video game from time to time.

Dressed in jeans and casual shirts, the men were spared the shame of being forced to wear orange jumpsuits in which federal prisoners are generally dressed. Midway through the flight they were served a meal of chicken or beef.

Upon their arrival at George Bush Intercontinental airport in Houston, the three were forced to take a “walk of shame” down the aircraft aisle accompanied by the six marshals while the other passengers were ordered to stay in their seats. They were taken on to the tarmac where a Houston police car was waiting.

It is understood that the three passed through US immigration in a separate area from other passengers.

Legal experts in Houston told The Times that the three would have been taken directly from the airport to the federal detention centre in central Houston, where they would be fingerprinted, photographed, strip-searched and assigned to a small cell for the night. Once taken to a cell they would discover whether they were lucky enough to have one of the few private “rooms” in the detention centre. Such a cell is barely big enough to contain the single bed and lavatory that each man will use.

More likely they will be in a similarly sized cell for two people, with a sliding barred door, a bunk bed, lavatory and sink. There will be no murderers or rapists in their federal facility but the majority of inmates will be awaiting trial for drug trafficking, human trafficking or pornography-related crimes.

The three will be confined to their cells for 23 hours a day but will be allowed out for an hour of exercise under close supervision. Speaking in Washington, Baroness Scotland of Asthal yesterday accused lawyers for the three of confusing the issue surrounding the fast-track extradition process introduced three years ago.

Lady Scotland accused the lawyers of a “frenzy of misinformation” that had mangled the extradition.

“The defence has conducted one of the best PR campaigns ever seen. All we’re saying in relation to this case is that the extradition appears to have been well founded,” she said.

The CBI also stepped into the dispute yesterday. Richard Lambert, its director-general, said: “Whatever the guilt or innocence of the NatWest Three, the current extradition arrangements are an affront to natural justice.

“If the Government does nothing to correct the current imbalance, it risks damaging the UK’s position as a leading financial capital market.”

The men spent their last night in Britain before the extradition with their families.

Mr Darby, 44, had a barbecue at his home in Somerset. He is married with two children, Ellenor, 10, and Katie, 8. Mr Mulgrew, 43, from Brighton spent the evening with his ten-year-old son. Mr Bermingham, 43, who has three young children, aged 4 to 8, went to watch one of them take part in a swimming gala near his home in Goring, Oxfordshire.

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