Trafficmaster, which monitors road congestion, reported that major road routes were busy just after lunchtime.

A number of accidents led to queues, with the M11 in Cambridgeshire, the M6 near Warrington, the M1 near Milton Keynes, the M40 in Warwickshire and the M25 in Hertfordshire all extremely busy.

With around 30 million people expected to take to the roads over the weekend the Highways Agency, the Government's roads agency, suspended roadworks at 12 sites.

Meanwhile, fears over flight delays due to extra security measures appeared to be unfounded this afternoon. Early delays took place at Heathrow after a security equipment fault at Terminal 2, but apart from that there were no flight delays at the west London airport.

The Association of British Travel Agents said favourite hotspots for British travellers this weekend were Majorca, the Canary Islands, the Greek Islands, Italy, Cyprus and Turkey

Earlier today, low-fares airline Ryanair announced it was suing the Department for Transport for more than £3million in lost revenue which Michael O'Leary, its chief executive, claims was caused by the Government displaying a "Keystone Cops" approach towards national security.

He accused the department's employees of "sitting around and inventing silly and ineffective security measures", which did not contribute to the fight against terrorism and simply inconvenienced people.

It is estimated that a total of 375,000 travellers were leaving from Heathrow over the holiday period, 250,000 from Gatwick, 160,000 from Stansted and 70,000 from Luton. In addition, nearly 400,000 were departing from regional airports including 160,000 from Manchester, 65,000 from Birmingham and 35,000 from Nottingham East Midlands.

Around 320,000 were heading for the continent by ferry or by Eurotunnel, with 70,000 taking trips through the tunnel with high-speed train company Eurostar.

In total, an estimated 1.7 million people are believed to be headed for hotspots abroad this weekend.

Those staying in the UK are likely to have to contend with rain tomorrow and on bank holiday Monday, with drier conditions on Sunday. Those that clogged motorways today were, at least, able to move off in bright early sunshine.

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