Interpol's system of red notices is open to political abuse by oppresssive regimes and facilitates the arrest of peaceful activitists and refugees around the world, according to the UK-based organisation, Fair Trials International.

In a highly critical report, the police cooperation agency, which is based in Lyons, France, is accused of assuming "that red notices are requested in good faith" and failing to scrutinise requests rigorously enough.

Red notice alerts are meant to be used to combat international crime but their credibility is being undermined, Fair Trials International maintains, because they are being misused by some of the 190 participating states to pursue exiled political opponents.

Interpol's internal review mechanism is described as "ineffective" because it only operates after red notices have already been disseminated in temporary form across the globe using Interpol's new 'i-link' system. Sometimes, the report adds, published red notices stay in place despite extradition and asylum decisions recognising the political nature of a case.

Interpol's origins date back to a Criminal Police Congress held in 1923 in Vienna and attended by 20 European states. When the institution moved to Nazi-controlled Berlin, most national police forces withdrew. It was resurrected after the war when its headquarters was re-established in France.

Red notices are the highest level of alert and must be based on a national arrest warrant. The stated function is to 'seek the location of a wanted person and his/her detention, arrest or restriction of movement for the purpose of extradition, surrender or similar lawful action'.

There was a sharp increase in numbers issued when an electronic system was introduced in 2008; more than 8,000 were sent out last year. Many countries, but not the UK, treat them as provisional arrest warrants. (There are other forms of notices such as yellow for missing children, black for unidentified dead bodies as well as blue, purple, green, orange and UN notices.) In recent years, states have also used less formal alert methods, known as a 'diffusions', to circulate information about suspects.

Fair Trials International is calling on Interpol to "refuse or delete red notices where it has substantial grounds to believe the person is being prosecuted for political reasons", require countries to show them an arrest warrant and prevent red notices going out to other countries while under review unless it is an emergency.

The report, entitled 'Strengthening respect for human rights; strengthening Interpol', warns that Interpol's supervisory system that receives complaints about red notices, the Commission for Control of Interpol's Files (CCF), is "a data protection body unsuited to this responsibility and lacks essential procedural guarantees".

Among countries identified as abusing the system are Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Belarus, Indonesia, Iran and Venezuela. Interpol, Fair Trials says, should create a separate complaints-handling body that allows a disclosure process and published, reasoned decisions. Jago Russell, chief executive of Fair Trials International, said: "Interpol has an important role to play in the fight against serious and organised crime but, when abused, its global 'wanted person' alerts can have a devastating human impact. With simple reforms Interpol could weed out many of these cases and strengthen its credibility which is threatened every time its systems are misused for political purposes."

Some of Interpol's 190 member countries are human rights abusers and notoriously corrupt, the report says, pointing out that Interpol has no effective mechanisms to prevent countries, or even individual prosecutors, abusing its systems.

Among examples highlighted by the report are the case of Petr Silaev, a Russian anti-fascist activist and refugee from Moscow, who was arrested in Spain last year on the basis of a request circulated by Moscow prosecutors using Interpol's channels and was detained for eight days in a high-security prison.

In the UK, Benny Wenda, a West Papuan freedom fighter who escaped from prison in Indonesia and was granted asylum as a political refuge, was pursued by a red notice obtained by Indonesia based on politically-motivated charges. It was deleted following intervention by Fair Trials.

In a more recent case, the report documents, a 28-year-old British woman who worked for an airline's cabin crew "had her life turned upsidedown and her employment terminated when she was the subject of an red notice based on an unpaid debt in the Middle East." The notice was belatedly deleted.

Responding to the report, a spokeswoman for Interpol said: "[We have] effective, well-established systems in place to identify and address potentially politically motivated requests, and measures to protect the rights of individuals. If a request is found to be in violation of Interpol's constitution and rules, it is deleted from Interpol's systems and all member countries are required to do the same at the national level.

"Under Article 3 of Interpol's constitution it is strictly forbidden for the organisation to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character. This is a prohibition which Interpol takes extremely seriously.

"Indeed, the overwhelming majority of requests by member countries raise none of these issues, despite a handful of cases receiving particular attention. The cases raised by Fair Trials International are very much the exception, not the rule. However, Interpol must and does remain vigilant to potential misuse of its network and continually reviews and refines its procedures and controls.

"Interpol is not a judicial body. It is not, nor should it be the responsibility of INTERPOL ... to assess evidence at the national level."