Senior MPs have demanded an immediate overhaul of Britain's controversial anti-terrorism powers.
A committee of Privy Councillors set up by Home Secretary Mr David Blunkett to review emergency laws passed within weeks of the September 11th attacks recommended measures allowing foreign nationals to be locked up without charge or trial should be replaced "as a matter of urgency".
The report revealed that nearly half of suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in Britain were British citizens and that current powers "do not meet the full extent of the threat".
The committee criticised officials for their failure to find alternative ways of dealing with the 17 people who have been interned under the powers. They said terror suspects should instead be prosecuted under normal criminal law whenever possible.
Changes to the law may be required to allow more suspects to be prosecuted, such as allowing communications intercepted by police and intelligence services - phone taps, for example - to be used as evidence in British courts for the first time, they recommended.
This approach had been used successfully in France and in the United States in relation to organised crime, the report said.
The report said the Home Office had argued that al-Qaeda terrorists were predominantly foreign. "But there is accumulating evidence that this is not now the case," it added, highlighting the cases of shoe bomber Richard Reid and the British suicide bombers who attacked Tel Aviv in May 2003.