The special report, expected to be adopted overwhelmingly by the parliament in September, calls for the European Convention on Human Rights to be amended to enforce the privacy of international communications at the same standard as that which applies to national communications.

It also demands that the British and German governments enforce their legal and treaty obligations to ensure proper supervision and accountability for secret US surveillance operations conducted from their territory.

"The American authorities have repeatedly tried to justify the interception of telecommunications by accusing the European authorities of corruption and taking bribes," the report says. Britain and Germany host giant satellite-based listening stations that form the major part of the US international surveillance network.

The world's largest electronic spying system, of which Echelon is a part, is run by an alliance of Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the US. It is founded on a still-secret 1948 agreement. The five nations share what they collect from their global network of surveillance stations.

The developing spy base controversy has been seen as placing Britain under pressure to choose between its historic intelligence links with the US and the new European defence and intelligence initiatives spearheaded by Germany. Recent events point to a deeper and different schism in Europe, with Washington moving to pre-empt British isolation and to undermine a German-led Europe rising to become a rival intelligence power. It is a battle that only Berlin seems so far to have anticipated and joined.

In a little-reported development two days after the European Parliament report was published, irate US diplomats wrote to the German Government to announce that, after lengthy negotiation with the central government, the Bad Aibling base, south of Munich, would be closed by September next year.

In 1999 Germany was the first big country to denounce US intelligence-inspired attempts to control private and commercial cryptography to levels they could easily break.

France and most of the rest of Europe followed suit. By December the US Government had been forced to abandon its decade-old control policy on commercial and political grounds.

Four months ago an edict from Berlin specified that German military and foreign service computer systems would be prohibited from using the Microsoft Windows system because the program code could not be checked for security or "back door" flaws.

The US riposte on Echelon came early last month, after President George Bush visited Madrid. Spanish and US officials openly spoke of new arrangements between the US and Spain to supply communications intelligence from the Echelon network to help fight the separatist Basque terrorist organisation ETA.

Since most ETA terrorists operate from south-western France, the Spanish-US deal effectively authorised US intelligence intercepting telephone calls and other communications in France.