Five terrorist suspects were under arrest last night as Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism chief said that links between the London West End and Glasgow airport bomb plots were becoming “ever clearer”.

The intelligence gleaned from the failed London attacks in the early hours of Friday morning led police to Glasgow 24 hours before the attempt to blow up the airport, The Times has learnt.

At lunchtime on Saturday, about three hours before the Glasgow attack, police officers were knocking on the door of the director of an agency that let out a house to two Asian men, believed to have been those involved.

On Friday police told the biggest shopping centre in Glasgow to increase security in the car parks “in light of information received”.

‘Items sent as earthquake aid’

Hidden among clothing were goods selected and purchased to support the activities of terrorists, a court was told

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Peter Clarke, Deputy Assistant Commissioner and head of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command, said that a substantial amount of material was being gathered from the two incidents, and he was confident that the full facts of the plots would emerge, including the “network” to which the suspects belonged.

With Britain remaining on “critical” threat status — the highest alert grading, indicating other imminent attacks — Mr Clarke said that new information was coming in “hour by hour”.

Two Asian men recently moved into a two-bedroom semi-detached house in the village of Houston, just outside Glasgow, after signing a six-month tenancy agreement for £500 a month. Sources told The Times last night that the person whose name was on the tenancy agreemeent was a doctor and may have worked at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley, the scene of a controlled explosion yesterday afternoon.

The Times has learnt that a director of the letting agency returned home after 3pm on Saturday — ten minutes before a Jeep was driven into the front entrance of the airport terminal — to find a card from Strathclyde Police’s serious crime squad asking him to contact them. Officers are believed to have called at his home three and a quarter hours before the attack.

Daniel Gardiner, the agency’s owner, said: “I can’t say exactly when the tenants moved in but it was between two and four weeks ago. Three of our staff have been interviewed by police and another one has still to be interviewed. They [police] have taken all the paperwork and everything else relating to the tenancy.

“The officers seemed to know an awful lot about the tenants when they spoke to us. They had all the phone records from our company to their numbers and wanted to know who had made the calls. They seemed very on top of who they were.”

The Times also learnt that security staff at the Braehead shopping centre, which has more than one million sq ft of shops and 6,500 parking spaces, were told to be extra vigilant in their car parks. Peter Beagley, the general manager, said: “We have stepped up security and we are looking at all our car parks and we do have extra police on site.”

In a day of fast-moving events, a 26-year-old man was arrested by police in connection with both the failed London attacks and the Glasgow attack. He was detained while driving through Liverpool in the early hours of yesterday morning. A fast-food restaurant and hotel at the heart of the city’s clubland were also evacuated.

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