Smash hit

Roger Smith, the director of the civil rights and law reform group Justice, said it was right that there should be some sort of judicial review if police were to get new powers to hold suspects for longer than 14 days. But he would have serious concerns if the idea of secret hearing were to be extended beyond the pre-trial process, he added.

The plan was criticised by Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, the civil rights organisation. She said: "We always have to be very careful about trying to cut and paste from other people’s different criminal justice system. What happens is that the safeguards are left out."

There is already a system of security-vetted lawyers, known as "special advocates", who take part in immigration and other hearings related to terror suspects.

Ian Macdonald QC, who last year left his job as special advocate to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission which hears deportation cases, described the proposals as "a bit botched".

He said it was unclear whether the Government wanted to move towards a French-style system of investigating judges, or was simply trying to extend the time that terrorist suspects could be held without charge beyond the current 14-day limit.

"If you are going to move to a completely new system of pre-trial investigation along the French lines, we haven’t got a corps of judges who can lead a major investigation into crime," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"What it looks like is that it won’t, in fact, be anything like the French system, but will, in fact, be a method of extending the detention of suspects for more than two weeks.

"That’s the trouble, We haven’t got a clue whether it is, in fact, a move towards an entirely new system or whether, in fact, it is just dressing up the existing system and allowing the further detention of suspects."

In Whitehall there was continued disarray over the Government’s response to curbing the activities of preachers of hate and extremist groups. Although the Prime Minister promised on Friday that Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the successor organisation of Al Mujahiroun would be proscribed, it is likely new laws will be needed before they can be banned.

Officials in the Home Office are understood to have cautioned 10 Downing Street about the difficulties of banning the organistions under the existing Terrorism Act.

But the Prime Minister issued his 12-point agenda for action - with Home Office officials in the dark about some of the proposals.

Yesterday 10 Downing Street rebuffed reports that charges of treason could be brought against religious fanatics. A spokeswoman for Tony Blair made clear he was not in favour of the ancient law being brought to bear on extremists when other more specific charges could be brought.

Edward Garnier, Shadow Home Affairs spokesman, said ministers appeared to be in disarray over how to handle the terrorist threat. "I think what we’re facing, I regret to say, a period of confusion emanating from the Government," he said.

John Denham, a former Labour Home Office minister who chairs the home affairs select committee, said that the Government had resorted to floating "half-baked ideas" in a bid to meet media pressure for tough action on terror. He told the BBC that he was "very disturbed" that the cross-party response to July’s attacks in London seemed to have been abandoned.

He said: "The last few days really give this sense that the Government have got into a real state of nerves about the whole thing; it is displaying a lack of confidence in its own strategy and I think they’ve got to get a grip on it very, very quickly, stop floating half-baked ideas and get back to proper cross-party consensus on the serious measures that need to be taken."

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