Rising price of food and restaurants behind increasing inflation
The increase in the annual inflation rate was mainly due to price rises in the restaurants and hotels, food and non-alcoholic beverages, and clothing and footwear divisions.
The rising costs of goods leaving factories and of raw materials were also reasons for the unexpected increase in inflation last month.
Economists had forecasted that inflation would fall to 9.9pc in February.
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Inflation has increased to 10.4pc, handing a blow to the Bank of England ahead of its decision on the next move for interest rates tomorrow.
Policymakers have faced calls from analysts to slow the pace of interest rate rises to ease the pressure on the global banking system.
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What happened overnight
Asian shares staged a cautious bounce on Wednesday with hopes a global banking crisis would be averted vying with uncertainty over the outlook for US interest rates.
Unease left both S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures barely changed. EUROSTOXX 50 futures edged up 0.2pc, while FTSE futures climbed 0.1pc.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.9pc, with Chinese blue chips up 0.3pc. Japan's Nikkei firmed 1.6pc led by a rebound in beaten-down bank stocks.
Stocks rose in Australia and futures for benchmarks in Japan and Hong Kong advanced. Australian and New Zealand government bond yields rose, tracking the action in the Treasury market on Tuesday.
Shares in US lenders rebounded as fears of a global banking crisis eased, lifting Wall Street's main equity indexes ahead of the Federal Reserve's highly-anticipated interest rate decision.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 316 points or 0.98pc to 32,560.60. The S&P 500 jumped 1.3pc to 4,002.87, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.58pc to 11,860.11.
Extreme volatility in short term government bonds dragged into the nine consecutive day, with traders betting on another 25 basis-point interest rate hike. The policy sensitive two-year Treasury yield surged as much as 21 basis points to 4.18pc.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the FTSE 100 index closed 1.79pc higher at 7,536.22, marking its best performance in over four months. The exporter-heavy index was boosted by a week pound, alongside a rally on bank stocks which surged 3.34pc across the FTSE 350.