British police will interview the only surviving militant from last month's deadly attacks in Mumbai to investigate whether he has British connections, Gordon Brown revealed yesterday following talks in Delhi with Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister.

Mr Singh gave the go-ahead for police and intelligence officials to speak to Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab, who has been undergoing "sustained interrogation" in a Mumbai jail since he was captured on the first day of the attacks.

Mr Brown was meeting Mr Singh on the second day of his tour of Asia, where he is attempting to build bridges between India and Pakistan following the Mumbai attacks which began on November 26 and left at least 170 people dead, including three British citizens.

Mr Brown believes that interviewing Mr Qasab will send a signal that the terrorist attack was a crime against the international community as well as India.

Mr Qasab has been remanded in Indian custody until December 24 facing charges including murder, attempted murder, waging war against a country and criminal conspiracy. Indian police say he has told them he is from Pakistan and belongs to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistani militant group. They also say he has written to the Pakistani authorities asking for legal assistance.

Pakistan says it has been given no proof that its citizens were involved.

British police and intelligence services have been gathering evidence about the attacks in Mumbai for the last fortnight. They can interview Mr Qasab even if they have no intention of bringing British charges because one British citizen and two people with dual nationality were killed in the attacks.

The intelligence services do not have specific evidence of Mr Qasab or any of the other Mumbai suspects having British connections, but believe he may be able to shed light on terror networks active in Britain because the vast majority of UK terror plots have their origins in Pakistan.

Two police officers from Scotland Yard flew out to Mumbai during the attacks as part of a rapid deployment team, including Foreign Office and Red Cross staff.

The police officers have since been replaced by others, but none has had access to Mr Qasab or to the attack sites so far, according to the British High Commission in Delhi.

Scotland Yard confirmed that its officers were still in Mumbai to support the Indian investigation, but declined to give any further details.

A team from the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation has also been in Mumbai offering its assistance, but it is unclear whether it has had access to Mr Qasab.

Analysts say US and British security officials are keen to get more actively involved to glean potentially valuable intelligence and to help ensure that India gathers solid evidence against Pakistani militants.

Indian police have a long history of blaming Pakistan for terrorist attacks on its soil and leaking purported evidence to the Indian media, but never doing thorough forensic evidence or presenting proof to Pakistani authorities.

"If India doesn't do a thorough job this time, then it becomes harder for the international community to weigh in on its behalf," one Western diplomat told The Times.

Indian officials say Mr Qasab has told police he is 24 years old and from the village of Faridkot, in the southern part of the Pakistani province of Punjab. Pakistani officials initially denied any record of such a person, but residents of Faridkot have since confirmed that Mr Qasab was from there.

Indian police also say Mr Qasab has identified two Pakistan-based LeT leaders who coordinated the Mumbai attacks – Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the group's operations chief, and Yusuf Muzammil. They said Mr Qasab told them he was recruited for the operation by Lakhvi and that the gunmen had called Muzammil on a satellite phone after hijacking an Indian vessel en route to Mumbai.

They also say that he has confessed to undergoing training at several militant camps, including one near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Pakistani officials say they have arrested about 20 militants, including Lakhvi and Zarar Shah, LeT's communications chief. However, Pakistan says it wants proof of their role in Mumbai and has ruled out handing them to India, pledging to try them on its own territory if there is evidence against them.

During his visit to Afghanistan on Saturday Mr Brown said repeatedly there was a "chain of terror" between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Britain.

American troops will be sent into southern Afghanistan in the new year to try and slow the tide of militants coming across the border.

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