The airports affected under the United States' ban are in Cairo, Istanbul, Kuwait City, Doha, Casablanca, Amman, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Royal Jordanian Airlines, Emirates, Etihad, Egypt Air, Turkish Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Kuwait Airways, Royal Air Maroc and Qatar Airways fly direct from those sites.
Together, they have about 50 direct flights per day into the United States.
The US Department of Homeland Security says passengers travelling from the prescribed airports may not bring devices bigger than mobile phones into the main cabins of the planes.
That means devices such as tablets, portable DVD players and laptops will have to be checked in and transported in the cargo hold.
The new restrictions have been prompted by intelligence reports that militant groups want to smuggle explosives within electronic devices.
Britain says it has seen the same intelligence as the US authorities, which is why it is copying the US move.
The British restrictions apply to direct flights into the country from anywhere in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia or Saudi Arabia.
New York-based aviation analyst Kyle Bailey says items in the cargo hold can be better screened.
"They can actually be more thoroughly screened by the x-ray equipment and high tech equipment passing through. When it's your possession in the airplane, in the cabin, it's really hard to screen, other than the basic metal detectors and things of that nature. There's a more thorough screening process of equipment going through the cargo hold."
Britain says passengers will not be allowed to bring devices into the cabin that are more than 16 centimetres in length, more than 9.3 centimetres wide or more than 1.5 centimetres deep.
In the United States' case, the carriers have until Friday, US time, to comply with the new policy.
Mr Bailey says the new regulations could be good for US airlines and other carriers flying to the United States from other destinations than those prescribed.
"I think the US airlines are, no doubt, going to benefit from this, because these business travellers who spend a lot of money are now going to opt to fly on US-based airlines or airlines from other countries that aren't affected by the electronics ban. But it's a huge inconvenience for the business traveller, not being able to perform work on these long flights."
The reaction has been mixed among travellers on the ground.
At Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, a waiting passenger, Andulbaki Goral, says the measures would be seriously inconvenient for business travellers, not so much for other passengers.
"You could use a computer during the flight - it is a solution for boredom - but there are people who should work during a flight. They need it. I don't need it, but it could be worse for them."
On the ground at John F Kennedy Airport in New York, the busiest international air-entrance site in the United States, passenger Mohsen Ali was sceptical.
He says people who want to cause trouble will simply now just do it in a different place or on a different airline.
"Oh, security for some people, and other people none? You know, it's not for everybody, right? And in the aeroplane, you have people from different nationalities. So the person who would do anything, he would carry his laptop and go to a different airline and do it, you know? So, I don't know how smart it was to make this decision."
For the United States, the restrictions only apply to flights entering the country, not those leaving it.
The new rules also do not apply to crew members on inbound flights.
In Australia, transport minister Darren Chester's office says Australia is not considering a similar ban.
