IF the war against terror is ever to be successful, the battle for the hearts and minds of people across the world has to be won.

And there is a growing danger that the fight for global support is being lost by America and its allies.

Video footage of British troops allegedly beating Iraqi demonstrators, horrific pictures of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, and now a United Nations report calling for the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to be shut down, all add up to what Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague rightly describes as a "critical erosion" of the allies' moral authority.

The effectiveness of the war against terror is dependent on that moral authority. We must show the world that we are above the kind of abuses we seek to stamp out in other, less civilised regimes.

And every photograph of Iraqi demonstrators being beaten or degraded, and every account of mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, undermines international goodwill.

Some inmates at Guantanamo Bay have been held without trial for more than four years. They may well be dangerous terrorists, but they may not.

What is clear is that they are being detained outside the accepted boundaries of international law, and beyond our normal understanding of what is right.

And when a body such as the UN speaks up and says America should either put the prisoners on trial or free them, more and more people around the world are going to find it harder and harder to disagree.

It is simply a situation that cannot go on without America and its allies becoming guilty of the kind of human rights abuses they are supposed to be campaigning against.