The stability of global order has been undermined by the terror attacks on the US, Jack Straw told the Labour Party conference on Tuesday.

The foreign secretary told Labour's rank and file that the September 11 attacks on America have rocked the world's international order.

"Those atrocities not only shocked the world, they have changed the world. They have changed our collective sense of peace, security and well-being. And they changed fundamentally the imperatives by which we maintain international order," he said.

Raising the spectre of fascism, the foreign secretary warned anti-war sympathisers in Labour against appeasing "those wish completely to destroy our values and way of life".

After the horrors of world war two a new world order enshrined in the UN charter had "worked well", said Straw. "But by its relative success it has also bred a degree of complacency," he cautioned.

Straw argued that like the appeasers of nazism in the 1930s the anti-war lobby was wrong in its belief that fascists or terrorists "could be reasoned with".

"It was great figures in our party like Clem Attlee and Ernie Bevin who were amongst those who recognised this uncomfortable truth early on," he said.

Terrorism was among "the greatest threats to peace and security across the world", said Straw.

Out of the devastation of the attacks on the twin towers, Straw said he hoped some good would come. "As we have seen, humankind has great capacity for evil. But I believe it possesses a greater capacity for good."

Straw pointed to the "unprecedented solidarity" with the United States which, he said, had seen countries from the Middle Easter backing the US in its hour of need.

"We must build on this momentum. And our challenge is to create not just a safer world but a more inclusive world, which deals with the wider global issues. For these new global challenges require global solutions. By working together as one, we can achieve more than by working alone," he said.