Euronext, the pan-European exchange, has said that NSC, its core trading engine, was not to blame for a technical problem which caused the closure of the Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon markets on Tuesday.

The technical problem caused the cash and derivatives segments of all four markets to be closed between 13.09 GMT and 13.35 GMT. A spokeswoman for the exchange said the glitch had been caused by the breakdown of a support system necessary to operate NSC, but that the core NSC trading system had not malfunctioned.