Muslim children who are at risk of being “radicalised” by their parents should be taken into care, according to the London mayor Boris Johnson.

Defining young people being “taught crazy stuff” at home as effectively child abuse, Mr Johnson said the efforts of counter-terrorism officers and social care workers were being hampered by “what I am obliged to call political correctness”.

He said the law needed to be changed so that children who are “ being turned into potential killers or suicide bombers” can be taken away from their parents, “for their own safety and for the safety of the public”.

Download the new Independent Premium app Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

And referring to the recent sentencing of the two Muslim fanatics who killed Fusilier Lee Rigby, the Mayor said it was time to abandon a “fatal squeamishness” preventing Government intervention in certain social, religious and cultural groups.

Mr Johnson wrote: “The most important question [after the murder of Lee Rigby] is how we prevent other young men, and women, from succumbing to that awful virus: the contagion of radical Islamic extremism.

“At present, there is a reluctance by the social services to intervene, even when they and the police have clear evidence of what is going on, because it is not clear that the ‘ safeguarding law’ would support such action.

“This is absurd. The law should obviously treat radicalisation as a form of child abuse.

“It is the strong view of many of those involved in counter-terrorism that there should be a clearer legal position, so that those children who are being turned into potential killers or suicide bombers can be removed into care – for their own safety and for the safety of the public.

“Paedophilia, FGM, Islamic radicalisation – to some extent, at some stage, we have tiptoed round them all for fear of offending this or that minority. It is children who have suffered.”