Amnesty's annual report skewered governments for adhering stubbornly to "politically convenient" but inefficient tactics in 2004, despite spectacular acts of violence including the Beslan hostage siege in Russia, the Madrid train bombings and the televised beheadings of captives in Iraq.

The US government and its allies in the so-called war on terror continue to persist in strategies that may be politically convenient but which are ineffective, and which undermine human rights," the group's secretary general, Irene Khan, said at the report's launch in London.

"Four years after September 11, the promise to make the world a safer place remains hollow."

In its wide-ranging more than 300-page review of 145 countries and five world regions, Amnesty found that the United States, due to its selective disregard for international law and reported mistreatment of detainees, had sent a "permissive signal to abusive governments".

Many countries used anti-terror rhetoric to justify arbitrary detentions and unfair trials, it said, citing China's arrest of thousands of ethnic Uighurs and similar acts in India, Malaysia, Nepal and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the White House on Wednesday slammed as "ridiculous and unsupported" claims by Amnesty International in a report that the United States has undermined respect for human rights across the world by striving to weaken absolute opposition to torture.

"I think the allegations are ridiculous and unsupported by the facts," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "The United States is leading the way when it comes to protecting human rights and promoting human dignity.