Access and Querying using Dates

Can anyone tell me why access changes the date format when u are querying.

if u enter a date 10/01/2001 (dd/mm/yyyy) in the creteria, the date will be changed to 01/10/2001 (mm/dd/yyyy). Is there a way of preventing this from happening as this isannoying and gives wrong results depending on the person entering the parameters.

regards