Alistair Darling will go on a one-man export drive today when he tries to persuade his fellow G7 finance ministers to adopt the British model for rescuing the global banking system from paralysis and eventual collapse.

The UK's £50 billion recapitalisation plan, backed by a further £450 billion in liquidity funding and loan guarantees, has been praised by analysts and commentators as the best proposal yet for shoring up confidence in stricken banks.

The Chancellor is likely to propose a global rescue plan along the same lines when he meets his ministerial colleagues and central bankers from United States, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Canada in Washington later today in what is being seen as the most important G7 gathering for many years.

Their talks come against the backdrop of the worst stock market carnage yet. The benchmark indices in London, Paris and Berlin all plunged by more than 10 per cent as trading began this morning after panic in the Far East.

The Japanese market tumbled 9.6 per cent, its worst one-day fall since the 1987 crash, after a shock sell-off on Wall Street as investors calculated the cost of a seemingly inevitable global depression.

Writing in The Times today, Gordon Brown called on the rest of the world to follow the UK's "ground-breaking" approach. Amid signs that the US Treasury is also planning the partial nationalisation of ailing banks, Mr Brown will have been cheered by a New York Times op-ed piece suggesting that the United States and Europe should go ahead and say: 'Yes, Prime Minister'.

Marc Chandler, an analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman, said that despite the grim outlook, the G7 still had some cards up their sleeves.

"We are hesitant to spread rumours, but there is increasing speculation that the G7 meeting could take another major step and that is to guarantee all interbank lending," he said. "This talk is having a demonstrable impact on the interest rate markets. It is difficult to evaluate the likelihood, but it is important to note that officials generally recognise that current measures are not yet sufficient to turn the corner of the crisis."

John Ryding, an economist at RDQ Economics, said that the move by Britain to inject capital into troubled banks offered a "glimmer of hope," especially after Washington said that it might follow suit.

"It will require the G7 finance ministers on Friday to see the actions that need to be taken but the pieces of the puzzle to the solution of the financial crisis will be in front of the finance ministers when they meet in Washington," Mr Ryding said.

"For this, we have to thank the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling. Our hats are off to them and, if Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson follows their advice, we could finally have found our wider firebreak."

In his Times article, Mr Brown said that he hoped the encounters in Washington - where the G7 meeting will be followed tomorrow by IMF crisis talks - could lead to a full leaders' summit to agree on a global rescue plan.

But there are still plenty of doubters, including the IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who called on European Union leaders to work together and avoid unilateral action. "Co-operation and co-ordination in actions is the price of success. All kinds of cooperation have to be recommended," Mr Strauss-Kahn told reporters. He said that unilateral action "has to be avoided, if not condemned".

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