In the present work the effects of thermal creep on the development of fluid flow and heat transfer in rectangular microchannels with constant wall temperature in the slip flow regime, 10-3 ≤ Kn ≤ 10-1, is investigated. To avoid the unrealistically large axial temperature gradients due to the upstream axial conduction associate with low Re flows in microchannels and the uniform inlet temperature, an adiabatic section is considered at the inlet of the constant wall temperature channel. Navier-Stokes and energy equations are solved numerically using a control volume technique, while velocity slip and temperature jump conditions are applied at walls. Despite the constant wall temperature, axial temperature gradients form in the gas layer adjacent to the wall due to the temperature jump condition. Thermal creep effects due to the axial temperature gradients that are considerable in the early sections of the channel affect the flow and temperature fields especially at low Reynolds numbers flows. The effects of slip and thermal creep on the flow patterns and key flow parameters are examined in detail for a wide range of cross sectional aspect ratios, Knudsen and Reynolds number

Keywords