A leading Pakistani diplomat has warned that Britain would be making "a great mistake to point the finger" at other countries while failing to acknowledge that it was also "a breeding ground for terrorists."
Munir Akram, Islamabad's ambassador to the United Nations, made his comments after it emerged that at least two of London's four suspected suicide bombers had attended religious schools, or madrassas, in Lahore and ahead of tomorrow's Downing Street summit with British Muslim leaders.
Rejecting suggestions that one of the suspects, Shehzad Tanweer, might have been "turned" into a terrorist during his visit to Pakistan earlier this year, Mr Akram said: "I think brainwashing is a long process. You cannot brainwash someone instantly unless they are inclined to be brainwashed."
He told the BBC's World this Weekend programme this was first and foremost a British problem.
"In this instance it may be Pakistani roots, if you wish. But we have to look at the root causes in the society in which they [ the bombers] were born," he said.
Rather than attempting to externalise the issue, Mr Akram said, a pressing concern should be the failure to fully integrate the Muslim community into British society.
While accepting that Pakistan had continuing problems with its own militants, he insisted the country had made significant progress in reforming its religious schools.
Mr Akram spelt out his challenge as a Muslim Labour MP said religious leaders in Britain must warn Muslims engaged in terrorism that they face "hellfire" rather than reward "in the hereafter."
Sadiq Khan was speaking ahead of tomorrow's Downing Street summit, amid reports that prime minister Tony Blair will tell Muslim leaders that British mosques will have to tighten their screening procedures or face outside regulation.
With an estimated 1,800 of Britain's 3,000 imams coming mainly from Pakistan and subject to no regulations or mandatory checks on their qualifications, yesterday's Sunday Telegraph reported that Mr Blair is considering a new state-sponsored training college to help Muslim clerics promote moderate Islam.
Home Office proposals for an accredited qualification and a standardised assessment of "civic knowledge" for clerics - including evidence of involvement with their local community and other faith groups - are also likely to feature at tomorrow's summit, which Conservative leader Michael Howard and Liberal Democrats leader Charles Kennedy will attend.
Acknowledging the widespread anxiety about the influence wielded by some fundamentalist preachers, and the disconnection of some younger Muslims, Mr Khan said: "The Muslim communities are not reaching those people who they need to engage with and win their hearts and minds.
"What leads someone to do this? The rewards they are told they will get in the hereafter. It is incumbent upon Muslims to tell them that nowhere in Islam does it say this and in fact what you will get is hellfire."
Baroness Uddin said yesterday that Britain's problem with "home-grown" terrorists did not appear to be the consequence of disaffection and appeared more deep-seated.
She said she had urged Downing Street to ensure the presence of representative women at tomorrow's summit. Calling for caution in commentary about the failure of the Muslim community to detect the bombers in their midst, Baroness Uddin observed that neither had they come to the attention of Britain's intelligence services.
And as the Home Office prepares a raft of new laws on the indirect promotion or glorification of terrorism, she pointed up the failure of the authorities to use existing laws to deal with notorious radical clerics like Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri.
A number of Labour MPs have attacked the BBC's Newsnight programme for broadcasting a film last Thursday, produced and presented by a leading Muslim thinker, Azzam Tamimi, in which he said British foreign policy was a factor in the London bombings.
Dr Tamimi, head of the London-based Institute of Islamic Political Thought, condemned the London bombings.
However, the BBC made no reference in its introduction to his previous defence of similar attacks carried out by Palestinian terrorists on Israel. Dr Tamimi told the programme: "Our policy is causing havoc in the world and driving some of our young men to desperation. We live in a house of glass and we have been throwing stones."
Louise Ellman MP called for an investigation into Dr Tamimi's comments, claiming there was a strong case for arguing they could incite racial hatred.
At the same time Mr Blair's new determination to exclude or expel persons preaching or inciting hate faces an early test, with another invitation to Britain to Muslim scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, this time to address a conference in Manchester on August 7th.
Mr al-Qaradawi (79), who is banned from the US, was welcomed to London last year by mayor Ken Livingstone despite protests by Jewish organisations and gay rights groups.
In a speech on Saturday Mr Blair again spoke of his determination to tackle Islamic extremists by confronting their "barbaric ideas" and "evil ideology" and by waging "a battle of ideas, hearts and minds" in Britain and abroad.