The Bose Quiet Comfort headphones are thought to be the best though very expensive, you can sometimes find series 1 or 2 on Ebay.
You might be interested to read the following site that has reviews of BOSE and Sennheiser (it's American but both are available in the UK.
http://www.consumersearch.com/www/electronics/headphones
A friend that I often travel with has a set of Bose generation 2 ones and I have tried them but personally I didn't find them any better that my ALAN CE Noise Busters which were a much cheaper buy, though they don't seem to be available anymore.
Bose usually come out top or very near in any comparison tests.