Those who cried loudest at the injustice seem least willing to help its remedy. It was the European countries with the strongest liberal traditions that were the most adamant in denouncing the US detention centre at Guantánamo Bay. But in response to Washington's call on its allies to accept many of the detainees against whom there was little evidence of terrorism, they have one by one begun to make excuses.

The Netherlands said that if those who had not been put on trial could not be returned to their own countries, they were the responsibility of the United States, the country that arrested them. Sweden also declared that they were America's responsibility. Denmark indicated that it would refuse to take in any. Australia said every inmate would have to meet normal legal requirements and go through an extremely rigorous assessment. And José Luis Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, said resettlement in Spain posed serious legal problems.

Britain has not yet formally responded to soundings already made by the State Department to about 100 countries. It is understood, however, that Gordon Brown wants to do whatever he can to help the incoming Obama administration to close down Guantánamo. That means accepting some of the remaining 248 detainees who were picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2001 but cannot be sent to their countries of origin because of the strong likelihood that they would be tortured or executed. Among them are a group of Uighurs, Chinese Muslims who are campaigning for greater autonomy from Beijing, and various former Islamist fighters from Arab countries.

Allowing them into Britain would indeed pose difficulties, as it would in Spain. They cannot be detained without charge, and they cannot be charged as almost all the evidence against them is either circumstantial or tainted by being obtained in Guantánamo under duress. That means that they would probably have to be set free after only a day or so in detention.

Allowing in dozens of al-Qaeda sympathisers at a time when the Government is desperately trying to halt the spread of religious extremism would be deeply resented, whatever the assurances that they would be placed under permanent surveillance. Indeed, it could lead to the paradoxical situation where the former detainees jump the immigration queue ahead of law-abiding foreigners from outside the EU who have had their applications delayed or rejected.

Until recently, Britain had held out against US entreaties to resolve the impasse at Guantánamo, believing, like others in Europe, that it was one of America's own making. Britain lobbied hard in private, when the camp was set up, for the release of the handful of British detainees, but was brusquely dismissed by Donald Rumsfeld and other Administration officials. All Britons have now been returned home. But there is little enthusiasm for helping the Bush Administration, in its dying days, to correct a blatant and widely denounced miscarriages of justice.

So far, only Albania and Portugal have committed themselves to taking detainees. Even staunch US allies such as Poland have rejected what its Foreign Minister has called foreigners who speak “exotic languages”. Such an attitude is far from helpful. The aim must be to allow the incoming president to close the detention centre as fast as possible, remove the best recruiting agent to the cause of extremism and repair America's tarnished justice, which in Muslim eyes damages all the West. The EU is to discuss its response to Washington's request in Prague next week. The Home Secretary now appears to ready to consider the admission of detainees on a case-by-case basis. Her EU colleagues should do the same.