The incident comes days after tragedy in France

The incident - described by BA as "minor" - comes just days after an Air France Concorde plunged into the ground minutes after take off from Paris, killing 114 people.

A BA spokeswoman said: "Passengers were transferred onto a standby Concorde - one is always available in case a safety issue arises.

"The transfer caused a delay to their flight of around one hour and a quarter.

"This was a minor incident, but obviously we do not make any compromises on safety."

'No panic'

"None of the passengers requested that they be transferred to a sub-sonic aircraft. There was no panic on board."

The passengers had not yet boarded the flight but were waiting in the departure lounge when they were notified of the problem, the spokeswoman added.

She said further details about the problem were not available, but that there was nothing to link it with Tuesday's crash.

British Airways, the only other airline to operate Concordes, resumed flights on most of its seven supersonic jets on Wednesday.

However Air France immediately grounded its fleet of five Concordes after the tragedy and is awaiting the outcome of further investigations.

Experts are trying to determine whether a tyre explosion before take-off could be linked to the raging fire that poured from the plane's left-bank of engines before it crashed.