MPs are to quiz travel bosses over the reasons why holiday-makers faced prolonged delays of hours to cross the Channel for several days in July.

The crisis began at the peak time for families to get away, leading to lengthy queues and long waits before travellers could begin journeys to their holiday destination.

So serious was the chaos that the Port of Dover declared a critical incident and blamed “woefully inadequate” French border control staffing.

This morning, MPs on the Transport Select Committee are set to grill industry bosses, union representatives and other organisations on what happened.

French police said the initial delays were prompted by an “unexpected technical incident” in the Channel Tunnel that delayed the morning arrival of border control officers in Dover by more than an hour.

The committee's one-off session on the travel disruption will not be confined to ports but will consider what happened at airports and on the rail network.

MPs will consider whether the problems were foreseeable or preventable and what the government can do to make travel plans more certain.

Witnesses at today’s meeting include the chief executive of the Port of Dover Doug Bannister and the travel journalist Simon Calder.