Neil Forrester has ditched plans to move his family to America after a trip there ended in a humiliating immigration nightmare.

Mr Forrester says he was handcuffed, fingerprinted, locked up for 23 hours then thrown out of the country when officials accused him of breaking immigration rules seven years earlier.

Mr Forrester, who has an American wife and a daughter with dual citizenship, is one of dozens of Britons to fall foul of stringent security procedures introduced at US airports after September 11.

The Foreign Office is investigating a surge in complaints about the treatment of British visitors by immigration officers.

Some claim to have been incarcerated for hours without food or water, others say they were subjected to aggressive behaviour.

While most of those who have had their holidays ruined have simply vowed not to return, the family's ordeal has destroyed their plans for a new life.

Mr Forrester, his wife Gilly and four-year-old daughter Scarlet, had left their family home in Preston Park, Brighton, to fly to California where they planned to make final arrangements for their emigration and visit Gilly's mother, who was dying of cancer.

The couple, who married in the USA in 2001, had been making regular trips across the Atlantic as Mr Forrester neared the end of the official process which would allow him to gain US residency.

The 33-year-old, chief technology officer for a London computer firm, said: "We were going through immigration at Los Angeles airport when an officer told me there might be a problem.

"They said I had, as they put it, overstayed my welcome in 1996. They had a record of my entering the country but not of my leaving it.

"They told me they were going to have to process me and although it should be all right it might take some time so my wife and daughter should go on without me.

"They photographed me, fingerprinted me, handcuffed me, took my shoelaces away, gave me a body search in case I was carrying any contraband then locked me up."

He was not allowed to call his wife or a lawyer and had to wait seven hours to be interviewed by immigration officials.

He said: "It was as if they had already made up their minds. I said that was not true. They said 'prove it'.

"I told them the only way to prove it was with my old passport which was back in England and I offered to get someone to fax a copy to the airport. They said they would only accept the original. I asked them what else I was supposed to do and they just said 'you're screwed, you're on the next plane home'.

"The only food we were offered was an apple and a frozen peanut butter sandwich. If you wanted a pee they would frogmarch you out to use a toilet. It was humiliating.

"I slept on some seats until the next day they frogmarched me to a plane. I felt like a criminal."

On his return to Britain Mr Forrester contacted the US embassy who told him even if they issued him with a visa the chances were he would again be turned away at immigration. They said my only hope was to contact the Department of Homeland Security in London to ask them to close my case. But they only accept visits from US citizens and have no phone line."

With his mother-in-law's condition taking a sudden turn for the worse Mr Forrester refused to give up, determined to be there for his wife and daughter.

He said: "It took another three weeks before I got a reply saying no.

"I've now been told the only way I'll be able to get back in is to cancel the whole residency process and then apply again for a visa. That could take up to two years."

The Forresters have already spent £3,200 on the residency application but the events of February last year have led to a change of heart.

Since then Mrs Forrester's mother has died. Mr Forrester was unable to join his wife for the funeral.

He said: "The person sponsoring my residency was my mother-in-law.

"I now have no desire to go and live in a country that treated me so unpleasantly."

In May the Foreign Office revealed it was seeking an explanation from the US authorities after being contacted by about 100 concerned Britons in the past 12 months.