London has already permitted two US aircraft laden with arms bound for the Jewish state to refuel at an airport in Scotland last weekend, newspapers said.

The allegation prompted Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett to complain to her opposite US number, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The news that Britain is apparently helping the United States supply more weapons to Israel comes at a bad time for Prime Minister Tony Blair as he flies to Washington to meet key ally US President George W. Bush for talks over the escalating crisis.

A majority of the British public opposes the Israeli campaign on the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which has left hundreds of civilians dead in Lebanon and devastated huge swathes of the country.

People have also condemned Blair's decision to side with the United States by refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire.

Turning up the heat, Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the second-ranked Liberal Democrats opposition party, demanded that the government refuses further US requests to use British airports as a transit for weapons.

"Britain should say no," Campbell said, referring to the reports that two more US planes will be allowed to use Glasgow's Prestwick airport as a stop-over en route to Israel.

"I think one would have hoped that the US government would have been sensitive to the fact that this is an issue which is causing a great deal of concern in the United Kingdom and would not have made such requests," he said.

The planes that landed at Prestwick at the weekend had been designated "civilian flights" and US officials had failed to notify British authorities of their dangerous contents, which included bunker-busting bombs, The Times said.

Beckett, who claimed she was "not happy" at the allegation, said she had raised the initial report with Rice and would issue a formal complaint to Washington if it was found to be true.

The Times reported, however, that the diplomatic row was more about procedure than principle, and quoted an unnamed senior government official saying flights through Prestwick "will be allowed to continue".

The official added: "It is a right we have always granted."

The White House, too, has dismissed British concerns about the allegations, with spokesman Tony Snow on Thursday calling it "a paperwork question".

Campbell, however, said the US stance was disingenuous.

"Even supposing all the paperwork was completely and absolutely in order, supposing all the bureaucracy had been satisfied, is there not an understanding that here in the United Kingdom there's real concern about the fact there's no ceasefire and the (Israeli) response which many people regard as disproportionate and amounts to collective punishment?" he asked.

Blair is not expected to raise the issue during talks with Bush later Friday in Washington, but he will likely face questions about it from the British media at a news conference afterwards.

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