[Leszek]

Do You have "AllowOverride All" directive in the configuration of Apache of a particular Virtual Host that doesn't accept .htaccess files ? I mean the <directory> </directory> part. For example:

<Directory /var/www/>        
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
        AllowOverride all
    </Directory>

Later You can decide if You need "AllowOverride all" or maybe something else.