Michael Howard said today that no asylum seekers should be allowed into Britain before their claims are processed.

The Tory leader was clarifying his party's immigration policy during a speech in Burnley, a BNP stronghold in which the far-Right party has more seats on the local council than anywhere else in Britain.

He said: "You cannot have a credible immigration policy if anyone can circumvent it by entering our country illegally, uttering the words 'I claim asylum' and be allowed to stay here even if they have no genuine claim.

"I want to see a new approach to immigration and asylum - an approach based on clear principles.

"No one should be allowed to claim asylum when they reach Britain."

Mr Howard, the son of Jewish immigrants from Romania, said that under a Tory Government asylum applications would be processed abroad, near the claimant's country of origin, in reception centres run by the British authorities.

Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Home Secretary, suggested last year that asylum seekers should be taken to offshore application centres to process their claims. He said that the exact locations would not be chosen until the Conservatives were in power.

The Government has denied that it has plans to send asylum seekers to camps outside the borders of the EU while their claims are processed.

Ministers have said that the UK is working with EU partners towards setting up "protection zones'' in war-torn areas and routes into Europe that would allow refugees to claim asylum before arriving at a European country.

Mr Howard said that the Government's "failure" to deal with immigration was fuelling right-wing extremism.

He attacked the Government for not putting in place controls to deal with expected migration from the ten eastern and central European accession states, when they join the EU on May 1.

Although ministers will announce on Monday plans to prevent people arriving in Britain without jobs, it has resisted pressure to issue strictly limited work permits or impose a complete ban on such "new Europeans" getting employment in Britain.