The study commissioned by the environmental group WWF, the Australian government and the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) said flags of convenience are the cornerstone of the illegal fishing industry.

"We urgently need an end to the corrupt system that allows fishing vessels to buy flags of convenience and operate illegally and without regulation on the high seas," said Claude Martin, head of the WWF.

At least 2,800 large fishing vessels either have a fla of convenience or are listed on Lloyd's Register of Ships as flying an unknown flag, the study said.

It is possible to register a ship in some countries within 48 hours over the Internet, for a few hundred dollars, with little proof required of the owner's real identity or link with the country of registration.

Belize, Honduras, Panama and the Caribbean island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines account for around three-quarters of the world's flag of convenience fishing vessels, the report said.

Even landlocked countries such as Colombia and Mongolia offer flags. "Flaghopping" by owners seeking ever laxer jurisdictions is a growing problem, the study said.

Nations with flag of convenience rules are "often turning a blind eye to illegal activities and exercising little or no control over how these ships operate," Martin said.

The ships, which generate an estimated income of 1.2 billion dollars (one billion euros) a year, the report said.They rarely have, or apply, the kind of fishing legislation seen elsewhere, including rules intended to preserve stocks by limiting the catch.

In addition to threatening the world's fisheries, such vessels also endanger wider marine life because of their slapdash attitude to "bycatch" -- the incidental capture of other species, such as turtles, sharks and sea birds, the report said.

It also criticised countries such as Spain and Taiwan, saying they made it easy for local shipowners to register vessels under other nations' flags of convenience.

The Spanish case "taints the image" of the whole European Union, said Martin.

David Cockroft, head of the British-based ITF, said unions have been campaigning against flags of convenience for five decades.

"They are used by shipowners to hide their identity, escape national rules, escape unions and exploit seafarers and now also fuel overfishing," Cockcroft told journalists.

"The people who benefit from this are not the people at sea, they are the people on shore," he said.

The report said vessels flying flags of convenience are the hub of a fish laundering trade, in which apparently legitimate ships take delivery of the catch at sea and take it to port.

"If the fish was labelled and could talk, you would find illegal fish in all the shops all over the place," said Martin of the WWF.

The report said governments must do more to ensure their apparently legitimate trade does not involve illegally caught fish, for example by giving port authorities more power to hold the industry accountable.

"The proliferation of flags of convenience shows that UN laws on flag states are insufficiently robust," said Australian Ambassador Mike Smith, urging the international community to crack down.

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