Terrorists could use Britain's university laboratories to learn germ warfare techniques, MPs have warned.

In a stark warning the Commons foreign affairs committee warned on Wednesday that international terrorist groups such as al Qaeda could obtain germ warfare agents from Britain's research laboratories.

"The level of threat to the United Kingdom from biological weapons must not be underestimated," the MPs warned.

Highlighting a Foreign Office report that claimed 100 kilograms of anthrax released from the top of a tall building could kill up to three million people, the MPs claimed lax security measures meant terrorists could access the chemicals and agents needed to make deadly weapons simply by signing up for postgraduate scientific research courses.

The report slammed as "inadequate" the current arrangements where universities voluntarily vet foreign students and called for a government department to take over.

It does not include NHS laboratories or commercial research units.

Universities and research centres set up their scheme after it was discovered that the head of the Iraqi biological weapons programme, Rihab Taba, was a student of plant diseases at the University of East Anglia in the 1980s.

"We are concerned that existing measures to regulate the use of biotechnology research in this country may be insufficient to prevent dangerous materials falling into the hands of terrorist groups,'' the MPs said.

"Our anxiety is that a fully qualified research scientist, who unknown to the authorities was a supporter of a terrorist group, could be admitted to a postgraduate or other research institution within the UK to pursue an approved programme of research. Such a scientist could thus gain unhindered access to dangerous materials."