We cannot have a situation where people come in and abuse our asylum procedures

Tony Blair

In the UK, new laws to speed up extradition procedures would be put through parliament in the next four to six weeks, Mr Blair revealed.

The aim is to allow Britain to extradite suspected terrorists for trial in another country without the barrier of time-consuming red tape.

While he accepted that the government would have to tread carefully when it came to civil liberties he said "we cannot have a situation in which it takes years to extradite people".

The US and his allies want this man

He said: "We cannot have a situation where people come in and abuse our asylum procedures and are then allowed to remain in this country.

"And we cannot have a situation where if we know someone is a suspected terrorist we do not have the legal power to detain them indefinitely until we find a country to deport them to.

"Those are basic things that we need to be able to do to protect the security of our own citizens."

Mr Blair added that new emergency legislation would also include measures to tighten up the asylum laws and to stop bureaux de change being used to launder money for terrorism and drug trafficking.

He said: "I hope that we will get support from all the political parties to put these measures through."

ID cards

Tony Blair: "Our first duty has got to be to protect our citizens"

Mr Blair said that no decision had yet been taken on the introduction of compulsory identity cards.

"We are considering all the various aspects of it. It is a very big step. We have got to get it right. We have got to make sure that it is effective," he said.

Speaking ahead of Labour's annual conference in Brighton, Mr Blair renewed his warning to the Taleban government in Afghanistan to either give up Bin Laden or face the consequences.

Asked whether he agreed with US President George W Bush that Bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive", Mr Blair said the important thing was to stop him.