Malaysia warned today that its cooperation with Australia in the war on terrorism was at risk after Prime Minister John Howard threatened pre-emptive strikes on neighbouring countries.

"We are cooperating as much as we can today in the fight against terrorism. But if they are going to blame us, we will have to rethink about cooperating with them," Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters.

The two countries signed an anti-terrorism agreement in August which provides for increased sharing of intelligence.

The pact was inked in Kuala Lumpur by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and his Malaysian counterpart, Syed Hamid Albar, who said it was testimony to a common desire cooperate in eliminating international terrorism.

Malaysia has detained more than 70 alleged Islamic militants since mid-2001, many of them members of the Jemaah Islamiah group suspected of involvement in last month's Bali bomb attack in which almost half of the more than 190 victims were Australian.

The two countries are also members of a multilateral pact called the Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA), along with Singapore, Britain and New Zealand.

Pact not threatened

Defence Minister Najib Razak said today that the pact was not threatened by the row, adding that he believed Australia would not launch any strikes in Malaysia without the government's permission.

"I believe the United States and Australian governments understand our stance on the matter, and will not do anything without our agreement," he said.

US President George W Bush has expressed his support for Howard's statement on the right to preemptive strikes.

Mahathir, who on Monday said Malaysia would consider any Australian attacks on targets inside the country without the government's permission "an act of war", made clear today his dislike of Howard.

He said not all Australians supported "this kind of arrogant attitude of Howard," whom he described as seeing himself as "a white man sheriff in some black country".

Mahathir has in the past derided Howard as America's "deputy sherrif" in Asia.

"As you know, we have never had any good relations with him at all but we have good relations with the Australians as a people," he said.

Several other countries in Southeast Asia have also condemned Howard's comments, saying Australia must respect other nations' sovereignty.