Britain says it will lodge a formal complaint with Spain after drivers were subjected to five-hour-long queues to cross into the tiny British outpost of Gibraltar, in a growing diplomatic row.
"The Foreign and Commonwealth Office will be protesting to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the unacceptable delays seen this morning at the Spanish border with Gibraltar," a Foreign Office spokesman said on Tuesday.
Gibraltar has accused Madrid of imposing the checks in retaliation for its decision to drop concrete blocks into the sea to create a reef for fish at the mouth of the Mediterranean.
Madrid claims the border checks are necessary to combat smuggling and that the reef is a deliberate impediment to Spanish fishing vessels in a dispute over territorial waters.
Waiting times peaked at five hours on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Royal Gibraltar Police.
Many people parked their cars on the Spanish side of the border and decided to walk across the border, carrying their luggage or briefcases in their hands to escape the tailback of cars waiting to pass the exhaustive checks imposed by Spanish authorities.
Many residents heads to the British outpost to buy fuel and tobacco because taxes there are lower.
Britain and Spain are embroiled in an escalating diplomatic row over stringent car searches imposed since the end of July by Spanish guards at the Gibraltar border, which have regularly caused delays of several hours.
Britain on Monday threatened to take legal action over the checks on the border of the rocky outpost on Spain's south coast while Spain said it was considering taking the dispute to global bodies such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Gibraltarians are firmly on London's side in the latest of a long string of spats.
The British warship HMS Westminster set sail on Tuesday on a training exercise that will include a stop at Gibraltar.
About 10,000 Spaniards cross the frontier each day to work in the self-governing British overseas territory which measures just 6.8sq/km and is home to about 30,000 people.
