bad behaviour in interactive Python prompt

[~km]

Hi,

I'm experiencing a strange behaviour of the Python prompt when using
the
four arrow keys ( not the VIM' nor Emacs' ones ;-) ). Instead of
getting
the previous and next command respectively I get ugly characters. See
it
yourself:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=m78cgp&s=3

This is not directly Python-specific, but you feel quite handicapped
if
you must rewrite each command again... so my obvious question is:

How can I fix this? Please, let me know if you can tell me something.

Additional information:
I'm running Ubuntu Linux
I've tried the python prompt in several shell environments and got the
same issue in csh, dash... all negative.

Cheers,
Kenny