Residents of the affluent commuter village of Houston, five miles west of Glasgow, woke early yesterday to find that they had been living among terrorist suspects.

Roused by the sound of a disturbance on a quiet Sunday morning, some stood opened-mouthed as men in white biological suits walked out of a semi-detached house at 5am clutching plastic bags of evidence.

Aileen Hill, 47, who lives across the street, struggled to take in what was happening. “I cannot believe it,” she said. “This is just a small place that nobody has ever heard of. When you tell people you are from Houston they think you live in America.”

Her shock was understandable, given the breathtaking pace of events. Over the past three days, anti-terrorist police have attempted to track down an Islamist cell that has attempted to kill and maim thousands. It has led detectives to Houston’s manicured lawns, which have been kept in pristine condition by bankers, lawyers and office workers.

‘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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• Pictures: Glasgow airport attack

BACKGROUND

• Brown plans to double 28-day detention limit

• Men in bungled raid say police attacked again

• More than Vigilance

• 'Dirty bomb' mastermind plotted wave of atrocities across Britain

• Jihadi house parties of hate

Related Links

• Britain hunts terror cell members on the run

• Luck alone spared us from a repeat of July 7

• Five held as police link attacks

Detectives are trying to establish whether the house’s occupants are the same men arrested after a burning Jeep drove at high speed and filled with petrol and gas cylinders into the main terminal of Glasgow International airport. The two Asian residents who lived in Houston are believed to have moved in within the past month, signing a six-month tenancy agreement to rent the two-bedroom house on one of the village’s less salubrious streets. They rarely, if ever, stopped to chat to neighbours.

One neighbour claimed that one of the men owned a Jeep. Mya Logan, 29, said: “The only time I saw anybody from that house was a Saturday morning when I was on my way to work. He had a Jeep and he was giving it a wash — hosing it down.”

Daniel Gardiner, who owns the agency that let the house, said that police had interviewed his staff with a particular interest in whom the two men had been speaking to.

“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,” he said.

The alleged attackers of Glasgow airport were also both Asian, according to witnesses. They had been apprehended after a determined, if ultimately amateurish, attempt to kill hundreds of holidaymakers. One had set himself alight and thrown petrol bombs through a broken terminal window, witnesses claimed. The other was restrained after trying to run away from security guards, it was reported.

The police believe that the attempted attack at the airport may be linked with two car bombs that were spotted and defused on Friday in Central London.

By Saturday night, the police had already tracked down others they wished to question. About 230 miles (370km) south of Glasgow, commuters driving home at dusk on the M6 through Cheshire watched as a dozen police cars sped along the fast lane.

Three unmarked police cars moved in front of the formation and forced a silver saloon on to the hard shoulder with a sudden stop. The car’s three occupants were then arrested at gunpoint, according to witnesses.

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