More than 2,000 passengers were forced to spend a panicky night stranded in the Channel Tunnel linking France and Britain after freezing weather caused five trains to break down.

The trains failed last Friday evening as they moved from the sub-zero temperatures in northern France into the warmer air of the tunnel, operator Eurostar said.

All Eurostar services between London and Paris and Brussels were cancelled yesterday, and the company warned passengers to expect a limited number of trains today, causing chaos on the pre-Christmas weekend, one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

Some passengers complained they were left to fend for themselves when the trains were halted under the English Channel.

Patrick Dussaut, who was with a group of 40 people from a French company hoping to visit Britain, complained they had been stuck in a Eurostar train since Friday evening and by yesterday lunchtime had still not reached London.

"People have been stuck in the train for 16-and-a-half hours non-stop, without being able to open the doors," he told AFP by telephone.

"There have been heated arguments between Eurostar staff and passengers who were fed up of being shut inside the trains. On a human level, the management has been catastrophic."

Another passenger, Lee Godfrey, who was travelling back to London from Disneyland Paris with his family when the train broke down, criticised Eurostar's handling of the problem.

"We were without power. We ran out of water, we ran out of food and there was very, very poor communication from the staff.

"We lost air-conditioning when we lost the power. We had to open the emergency doors ourselves," he told BBC radio, adding that passengers had been ""very, very panicky".

He said: "We have had children asleep on the floor, they have been sick. It has been a complete nightmare."

Eurostar said the cold weather had forced the suspension of services until today, adding to problems for travellers trying to return home for the Christmas holiday.

"We have not had a situation like this in 15 years," Eurostar executive Nicolas Petrovic told AFP.

"Five trains broke down in the tunnel between 8.30 and 11.30 p.m."

All the affected trains had been removed from the tunnel and two thirds of the 2,000 passengers had reached London by mid-morning yesterday, he said.