Services on Easylink buses were immediately suspended with drivers instructed by radio to abandon routes and to return the vehicles to the depot on the Old Kent Road.

Route 42 from Liverpool Street to Camberwell and 185 from Victoria to Lewisham are affected by the suspension.

It is expected that over the next few days services will be badly hit.

Skeleton service

A BBC London reporter had to tell passengers waiting at a bus stop in Camberwell that their bus would not be pulling up.

Long queues began to build with people trying to get home and having to find alternative routes.

One frustrated passenger said: "Basically that's just limiting our options of travel ."

Transport for London have managed to borrow a few buses from other companies in order to run a skeleton service on Easylink's two routes.

But the company's buses were impounded on Wednesday afternoon.

It is not known when services will resume.