  I present an homogeneous analysis of the transit light curves of 14
well-observed transiting extrasolar planets. The light curves are modelled
using JKTEBOP, random errors are measured using Monte Carlo simulations, and
the effects of correlated noise are included using a residual-permutation
algorithm. The importance of stellar limb darkening (LD) on the light curve
solutions and parameter uncertainties is investigated using five different LD
laws. The linear LD law cannot adequately fit the HST photometry of HD 209458,
but the other four laws give very similar results to each other. In most cases
fixing the LD coefficients at theoretical values does not bias the results, but
DOES cause the error estimates to be too small. The available theoretical LD
coefficients clearly disagree with empirical values measured from the HST light
curves of HD 209458; LD must be included as fitted parameters when analysing
high-quality light curves. In most cases the results of my analysis agree with
the values found by other authors, but the uncertainties I find are up to 3
times larger. Despite this, the analyses of sets of independent light curves
for both HD 189733 and HD 209458 do not agree with each other. This discrepancy
is worst for the ratio of the radii (6.7 and 3.7 sigma), which depends
primarily on the depth of the transit. It is therefore not due to the analysis
method but is present in the light curves. These underlying systematic errors
cannot be detected from the reduced data alone. Using my results and the
stellar spectroscopic orbits, I confirm the correlation between the surface
gravities of transiting extrasolar planets and their orbital periods.
[abridged]
