Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, has confronted Tony Blair about recent attempts by British human rights lawyers to have senior Israeli Defence Force generals arrested as they arrive in the UK, it was reported today.

Israeli newspapers reported that the two men met on the sidelines of the UN summit in New York yesterday and Mr Blair extended an invitation to his counterpart to visit the UK.

"I would really like to visit Britain," the Yediot Aharonot newspaper quoted Mr Sharon as replying, jokingly. "The trouble is that I, like General Almog, also served in the IDF for many years. I too am a general. I have heard that the prisons in Britain are very tough. I wouldn’t like to find myself in one."

Mr Sharon was referring to the near-arrest of General Doron Almog, a former Israeli army commander, at Heathrow Airport on Sunday, and the decision of General Moshe Yaalon, the army's former chief of staff, not to attend a speaking engagement in London this weekend because of fears that he too might be arrested.

Israeli military chiefs have been alarmed by the lawsuit filed on behalf of Palestinian victims of alleged war crimes committed by the IDF in 2002 and the issuing of an arrest warrant for General Almog - who stayed on his plane and returned to Israel after being tipped by embassy staff in London.

According to Israeli Army radio, Mr Blair was said to be have been embarrassed by the exchange and to have promised to "take care of the matter". A spokeswoman for 10 Downing Street confirmed that the meeting took place today but declined to comment on the conversation.

It is not the first time that war crimes charges have been pursued abroad against Israeli military chiefs. Relatives of the victims of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut - which happened while Mr Sharon was Defence Minister - tried unsuccessfully to have him indicted for war crimes in Belgium in 2001.

Lawyers from Hickman Rose, a British firm, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which is based in Gaza, are seeking to use the Geneva Conventions Act of 1957, which makes it an offence under British law for anyone of any nationality to commit a grave breach the Geneva Convention wherever the incident takes place.

The lawsuit names General Moshe Yaalon, as well as Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, Israel's current chief of staff, for their alleged role in the dropping of a one-tonne bomb on a crowded neighbourhood in Gaza that killed 14 people, mostly children, on July 22, 2002.

Meanwhile, evidence gathered by the lawyers about the demolition of homes in the Gaza Strip in 2003 prompted Bow Street Magistrates Court to issue a warrant for the arrest of General Almog, who is in charge of Israeli army in Gaza at the time, on September 10.

Furious at General Almog's escape -- and the reluctance of British police to board the aircraft where he remained before flying back to Israel -- Kate Maynard and Daniel Machover, lawyers at Hickman Rose, have demanded an inquiry into how news of the arrest warrant reached the general.

Ms Maynard and Mr Machover have written to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, asking whether any information was passed through diplomatic channels to the Israeli Embassy. Emily Thornberry, a Labour MP, has also asked for an inquiry.

Today a spokesman said that the Foreign Office had received the letter but that the failed arrest of General Almog was a police matter.

"This is very much a matter for the Metropolitan Police to take forward if they choose," said the spokesman. "We really don't have a locus in this."

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