The American company that supplies the Predator and Reaper drones used to assassinate insurgents in Afghanistan and elsewhere has complained to a committee of MPs about the image problem of such weapons.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, which also manufactures the Avenger and Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft, says the word drone has "pejorative connotations".

In a written submission to the defence select committee inquiry into remote-controlled warfare, the company says the term drone is misleading because it "belies their proven beneficial role in humanitarian crises".

It points out that its own military marketed products have been used for peaceful purposes. "Predator B [the Reaper's former name] has been used in the US with considerable success to prove relief from floods, forest fires and hurricanes," it says.

The company's submission to the committee, and those of other arms and aerospace firms, suggest the negative image of drones makes the public nervous and hampers an expansion of their military and civilian use.

The submission angered the justice and human rights group Reprieve, which is campaigning against the increasing use of drone strikes. "Should a firm which produces armed, flying robots with names like Predator and Reaper really be surprised that they are not considered to be humanitarian by the public?" a spokesman said.

"If General Atomics really wants to put an end to the 'pejorative' use of terms for its drones, a good first step would be to stop supplying them to those agencies which use them to carry out illegal strikes which have killed hundreds of civilians."

General Atomics' submission, which is riddled with defence industry acronyms and euphemisms, says it prefers the term remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) to the word drone. "It is relevant here that RPA are referred to colloquially by the press and the general public as 'drones', terminology that has acquired pejorative connotations and doubtless contributes to the RAF preferring the less emotive RPA … terminology," it says.

It calls for relaxation and co-ordination of regulations governing European airspace to allow more allow "RPAs to realise their full potential". It says that Predator drones could be used for a range of other activities including search and rescue, drug enforcement, border control, and surveillance.

RAF crews in Afghanistan operate up to 10 Reaper drones from control stations based in RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire and an airbase in the US. Since 2007 they have been used to fire more than 400 "precision-guided" weapons, according to the Ministry of Defence.

It claims that British-operated Reaper drones have only once been involved in the death of civilians, in an incident in March 2011 when four Afghan civilians were killed alongside two insurgents.

In its submission to the inquiry, the MoD said the use of such weapons is likely to continue to increase. "It is difficult to imagine a future campaign where such technology will not have a role to play," it said.

It rejected accusations that remote-controlled warfare created moral disengagement from battle. It said: "Experience of Reaper shows that air crew are fully immersed in the reality of combat, possibly to an even greater extent than operators of conventional aircraft. The persistence offered results in crews observing the aftermath of their attacks: a sobering experience rarely shared by other pilots or artillerymen."

The MoD's 14-page submission avoids any reference to the word drone and urged experts in the field to follow its detailed guidance on the correct terminology for various remotely piloted aircraft. It also rejected the term "unmanned aerial vehicle" as confusing because human pilots operated them remotely and would continue to do so.