World leaders have accepted that the underlying causes of insecurity need to be addressed in order to tackle the global terror menace, Tony Blair has said.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, the prime minister said there had been a real shift in emphasis, particularly in America's foreign policy.

The new approach could be seen from the statements issued at the recent G8 summit, he added.

"Not enough people have focused on a very important shift in American policy now mirrored in the rest of the world," he said.

"And that is a sense in which we understand that you cannot defeat security threats by security measures alone."

Blair said this approach was being implemented in the Middle East, via policy on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"What we have set out is a vision for the Middle East that is about a stable and democratic Iraq, that is about greater democracy and human rights in the Middle East, and is about reinvigorating the Israeli-Palestinian peace process," he said.

"All of those three things are necessary, and if I have any got plea of real urgency it is that the last one of those, the Palestinian-Israeli issue, we have got to come back to that and move that forwards.

"Otherwise we will find that if it continues, the festering of that problem continues to be a recruiting sergeant for terrorism."

On the Israeli plan to withdraw from Gaza and part of the West Bank, the prime minister insisted that further progress was needed.

"I do think what is important is that we try and take the first steps to get back into the roadmap process, but that has got to be done by security measures and that is what we are working on now," Blair said.

"It has also got to be stressed, of course, that the disengagement from Gaza and parts of the West Bank is not the conclusion of the final status negotiations."