This morning's shooting of a suspected terrorist at Stockwell Tube station suggests that police investigating yesterday's bungled London bombings have had a massive head-start against the bombers.

Police sources have told The Times that the man shot dead at the South London station today is understood to be one of the four would-be suicide bombers whose missions ended in failure on the Underground and a double-decker bus.

Forensic specialists are examining fingerprint and DNA evidence at each of the sites of the attempted blasts. All four unexploded devices, each held in rucksacks, have been recovered from Oval, Shepherd's Bush and Warren Street Tube stations and from a No 26 bus in Hackney.

The four bombs are thought to harbour a wealth of clues to the identities of the terrorists and could provide a goldmine of forensic evidence.

Police have been scanning CCTV footage of the bombers and have indicated they could release images of suspects as early as today.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said the bungled bombings could represent a significant breakthrough in the force's attempts to trace the attackers.

Detectives will initially try to establish whether there was a link with these explosives and the stockpile found in a flat in West Yorkshire in the wake of the July 7 suicide bombings.

Warren Street station remained closed this morning and under heavy police guard. Dozens of uniformed officers, many wearing reflective vests, were posted across the exits and the large, busy, neighbouring junction at Euston Road.

Police tape cordoning off the scene was stretched from street railings and around the wing mirror of an open florist’s van which had to be abandoned yesterday in the panic.

The Oval and Shepherd's Bush stations were also closed while intensive investigations continued. In Hackney, specialist officers were today examining a rucksack left on the top deck of the No 26 bus, which is being moved to a secure location.

Mike Granatt, a Government counter-terrorism adviser, told the BBC: "Unlike the fingertip forensic search we saw in Tavistock Square, which went on for days, the police have got something complete.

"They’ve got other material on there, they can take a look at it, compare it and try and trace back the materials that were used to make the bomb and indeed the signature of the bomb-maker."

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