While the leading industrial powers face a slowing global economy and emerging inflationary pressures on the back of rising commodity prices, the two big central banks in Europe took opposite tacks.

The European Central Bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4 percent. But the president of the central bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, in remarks after the rate decision, cited risks to growth in the economies of the 15 nations that share the euro, suggesting that the E.C.B. was leaving the door open to possible rate cuts in the coming months.

In recent months, even amid a credit crunch that was harming European economies, the central bank focus was on fighting inflation. Last month, data showed that inflation in the euro zone had risen to 3.2 percent, a 14-year high.

But the Bank of England saw the slowdown as the greater risk, cutting its benchmark rate by a quarter point, to 5.25 percent.

The bank said that "the prospects for output growth abroad have deteriorated and the disruption to global financial markets has continued."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, said in a speech in London on Wednesday night, "The global economy is facing its biggest test in more than a decade," the Times of London reported.

The newspaper also noted that the Bank of England was prevented from taking more aggressive action on interest rates, as the Federal Reserve in the United States has done, because of signs of growing inflation in Britain.

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