European politicians have been expressing new doubts about US plans for a missile defence shield, dubbed Son of Star Wars.

The newly-elected US President, George W Bush, confirmed on Friday that he would go ahead with the system, officially known as National Missile Defence (NMD), despite the concern in other countries.

German Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping on Tuesday indicated on a visit to Moscow that he was against US violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.

"It is in the interests of Europe and Germany for the international architecture of arms control to remain intact," he said.

Arms race fear

The Clinton administration spent months persuading Moscow to consent to changes in the ABM treaty, but Mr Bush's Defence Minister, Donald Rumsfeld, has said NMD would not violate the treaty.

The French President, Jacques Chirac, issued one of the toughest European challenges to NMD at a press conference in Turin on Tuesday.

"Our concern is that, in our opinion, NMD cannot fail to relaunch the arms race in the world," he said.

"The costs of this technology are colossal. It seems to us there is something contradictory between unrestrained increases in defence spending and the very excessive reduction in spending on development aid throughout the world."

At the same press conference, following a French-Italian summit, Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato said NMD posed a risk to the "indivisibility" of the US and Europe in transatlantic defence.

'Rogue' states

The US plan relies on the use of missile tracking stations outside the US, including one on the UK's North York Moors.

The British Government has not said whether it will refuse or approve a US request to use the station for NMD purposes.

The missile shield would not cover Europe.

The first deputy chief of staff of the Russian army, General Valery Manilov, suggested on Friday that Nato and the European Union could work together on a joint missile shield designed to defend them all against so-called "rogue states".

Russian Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev said the world community should conduct a "detailed analysis" of the threats.

Until recently the US held up North Korea as the prime example of a rogue state that could soon be capable of firing nuclear ballistic missiles, but the warming of relations between North and South Korea has been widely interpreted as a sign that any threat from Pyongyang is reducing.