This paper deals with the computation of control invariant sets for constrained nonlinear systems. The proposed approach is based on the computation of an inner approximation of the one step set, that is, the set of states that can be steered to a given target set by an admissible control action. Based on this procedure, control invariant sets can be computed by recursion. We present a method for the computation of the one-step set using interval arithmetic. The proposed specialized branch and bound algorithm provides an inner approximation with a given bound of the error; this makes it possible to achieve a trade off between accuracy of the computed set and computational burden. Furthermore an algorithm to approximate the one step set by an inner bounded polyhedron is also presented; this allows us to relax the complexity of the obtained set, and to make easier the recursion and storage of the sets. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.