"The Shahab 3 missile that Iran is developing has Cyprus and Turkey within its range. However, neither of those states feels particularly threatened, because there is no evidence of any intent by Iran to attack them," she told MPs Thursday.

Starkey was referring to attempts by the US to label Iran among the so-called 'rogue states' in an attempt to justify its plan to build a controversial nuclear missile shield, despite widespread opposition from China, Russia and most European countries.

Speaking in a debate on a report by the Foreign Affairs Committee on Weapons of Mass Destruction, she said the investigation heard evidence that Iran "has a perfectly legitimate right to feel under threat."

"It is right next door to Iraq, with which it previously engaged in an extraordinary war, resulting in the death of thousands of Iranian and indeed, Iraqi citizens," the Labour MP said.

"Iran is also already within range of the Jericho 2 missiles that the Israeli government have deployed. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that Iran may wish to take steps to defend itself," she said.

Starkey said that it should also be borne in mind that the "general conflict in the Middle East increases Iran's insecurity and makes it even more likely that it will step up its program of missile defense."

"Iran certainly poses no threat whatever to the United States. The only way the United States has been able to suggest otherwise is by extrapolating the threat forward and saying Iran intends, in the fulness of time, to acquire missiles that would reach American territory," she said.

The backbench MP told parliament that the US concern was "based largely on the extraordinarily poor relations between Iran and America that have existed in the past."

She suggested it was the policy that the US was pursuing in the Middle East, in bombing Iraq and giving Israel unconditional support, that helped to stoke up conflict in the region.

The unconditional support for Israel was despite it being the only regime with nuclear weapons, the most heavily armed, which was still illegally occupying territory, Starkey said.

During the debate other MPs also criticised US plans to build a missile shield and expressed concern that Britain was likely to allow Washington to upgrade facilities at American bases in England in support of the controversial proposal.

Conservative MP, Sir John Stanley, said it was not enough for the US to justify the plan "by trotting out the quartet of rogue gallery states that have been presented to Congress and the wider word - North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Libya."

"The postulation that one of those countries might launch an ICBM attack on the continental United States raises the question of why it would do so when the US Administration has a wholly invulnerable and massive retaliatory nuclear capability."

Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman Menzie Campbell said that the US missile plan was "unwise" and deeply flawed. The risk to the UK from weapons of mass destruction was lower than at any time since 1945, he said.