Ministers are likely to try again to extend the limit on police detaining terror suspects without charge to 90 days, Lord Carlile has told the BBC.

The independent reviewer of terror laws said he expected a bill early next year with several “tidying-up measures”.

These might include the 90 day plans which were rejected by Parliament last year, he predicted.

Meanwhile ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett has accepted the public was in danger of having “terror fatigue”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that raising awareness to the correct level, without creating panic, was “almost impossible”.

Mr Blunkett also accepted that the fact the government’s intelligence had turned out to be “wrong” about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction had “undermined confidence in other parts of the counter-terrorism thrust”.

‘Fill gaps’

Home Secretary John Reid said on Wednesday that the UK faced a “wave” of terrorist plots, prepared strategically and directed from abroad by al-Qaeda.

But no anti-terror bill was included in the Queen’s Speech, as Mr Reid is said to be reviewing options.

The government promised to fill “gaps” in legislation, “taking into account lessons learned” from the alleged airline bombing plot in the summer.

Lord Carlile told BBC Two’s Newsnight programme the options included “giving police powers to take fingerprints on fingerprint scanners at airports and seaports”.

He added: “The government may also include an attempt to return to 90 days’ post-arrest detention.

“If they do that it will, as the home secretary has said, have to be on an evidence base.”

Compromise

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has said an extension should be “examined again in the near future”, with Chancellor Gordon Brown adding that he “completely” agreed with this analysis.

However, Conservative leader David Cameron accused ministers of peddling the “politics of fear”.

The Tories say there should be an extension of the detention limit only if there is “credible evidence” to do so.

Last year, the Tories, the Liberal Democrats and Labour rebels defeated government plans to extend the period to 90 days - Prime Minister Tony Blair’s first Commons loss.

A compromise was eventually agreed to extend it to 28 days, doubling it from the previous 14 days.

Last week, MI5 chief Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller has said the security service knows of 30 terror plots threatening the UK and is keeping 1,600 individuals under surveillance.

Source: BBC