Airlines are warning there will be delays from a backlog of flights trying to get into the UK and Europe even after ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland clears.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers are stranded with some being told it could be a week before they can get another flight.

The ash plume from Iceland's volcano has now closed the airports of 22 countries in Europe's north and north west.

Among the latest countries to announce restrictions to their airspace are Italy, Hungary, Switzerland and Romania.

Big dollars are being lost, and so are tempers, although some commuters are good humoured.

"It's part of the adventure, I'd have to say. I may end up not getting to go to Poland and go on down to Munich or Vienna," said one stranded traveller.

But most have had enough. Like a couple due to be married in Mexico, a family on a rare holiday.

"We've spent a year saving for it. We haven't budgeted for what so far has racked up to be nearly 2,500 pounds for us to try and arrange to get home and obviously sort of up ourselves up in hotels and everything else," the family said.

And a man at Paris' Charles De Gaulle airport who spoke to the BBC's correspondent.

The correspondent says he has been given one night in a hotel in a suburb 20 miles out of Paris.

"He doesn't know how he is going to pay for the following night. He says he has lost his bags, his wife's medicines are in the bags," he said.

"He said 'I am suicidal'. I don't think he was but we was certainly a very, very unhappy man."

Travel paralysed

Brian Flynn from the airspace regulator Eurocontrol, says the system has been paralysed.

"On a normal day like today we would be expecting about 29,000 flights. It looks at the moment now that up to 17,000, 18,000 of those flights might have been cancelled and we'll only have somewhere between 11,000 and 12,000 flights today," he said.

Some commuters have pressed on, via rail and ferry services.

Eurostar services to Paris and Brussels for example have sold out and British comic actor John Cleese made a Norwegian taxi-driver's day, paying $5,400 for a ride from Oslo to Brussels.

A taxi driver in Moscow has seen the flight nightmare as a business opportunity.

He is offering to drive people to any location in Europe for a fare of $1,400 plus petrol.

He says that for a person who really wants to get somewhere, it is a reasonable price to ask.

"When such situations occur, there are opportunities and needs. Why not earn some money?" he said.

"I think that for a person who really wants to get somewhere, for business or personal reasons, this is a totally reasonable fare."

Qantas cancellations

Qantas and Singapore Airlines have cancelled flights to Europe but are still flying to Asian stopover destinations.

Both are offering to fly passengers stranded in Asia back to Australia.

Susan Bredow, from Singapore Airlines, says the company is looking at re-booking people on flights to Europe in several days time.

"We're looking at re-booking people five days out but obviously we would rebook them again if the situation was still bad in Europe," she said.

Ms Bredow says Milan airport is about to close and more European airports could follow.

"There's quite a few people in Singapore, we're going to bring them home as soon as we can and then without any additional cost we're rebook them back to their destination when they want to travel again," she said.

Emirates is also foreshadowing that a number of its flights may be cancelled throughout the weekend.

The airline is advising customers to check its website to see if their flight is going ahead, as their call centres have been overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, British weather expert Brian Golding is warning that more ash is on the way.

"One of the key issues is how long the volcano's going to carry on erupting and it does seem to have reinvigorated so we have a new set of ash coming into the wind stream heading more south from Iceland now perhaps than some of the earlier stuff," he said.

"We expect it to head down towards the UK again and to reinforce the cloud that's already here."