Scotland Yard has drawn up plans for a "safety foundation" which will try to identify extremists within Muslim communities across the UK . This project could be up and running within six months.

The project is the brainchild of Tarique Ghaffur, Britain's most senior Muslim officer, who is an assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard. Tarique Ghaffur suggests the foundation will identify and combat extremism and act as a thinktank analysing "the dynamics of disaffection".

The scheme will aim to encourage greater Muslim "self-reporting" of potential terrorists and remove what Mr Ghaffur calls "the vulnerabilities around religious institutions".

It will also ask countries such as Pakistan to monitor young British Muslims travelling in groups. One aim would to be to "debrief some of these young people academically or theologically".

Mr Ghaffur said the lack of integration was a serious problem and by using the language of terrorism, people switch off.

"It gives me no encouragement to say that in London there is no single chief executive of a local authority from a Muslim community, not a single NHS chief executive, not a single vicechancellor, not a single permanent secretary in the civil service."

He urged politicians not to speak of a war against terrorism, but instead a battle against criminals.