The report was published in this month's edition of the association's Which? magazine and compared several small family saloon cars.

A press release said Which? had praised the Audi A3 and Renault Megane but said the Daewoo Lanos, Honda Civic, Hyundai Accent and Suzuki Baleno were at the "other end of the scale".

Suzuki Baleno received two stars in the report

Daewoo and Honda took umbrage at the publicity, pointing out their models had been given three stars, compared with four for the Renault and Audi, and two for the Hyundai and Suzuki.

Honda UK spokesman Paul Ormond said: "As far as we are concerned we are in the middle of the range and not at the bottom as they suggested."

He said Honda had no grievance against the report, which was drawn up by the independent Euro NCAP (New Car Assessment Programme) group, and accepted the Civic, which is made in Swindon, Wiltshire, had room for improvement.

The report says the Daewoo, Honda, Hyundai and Suzuki all represented an "unacceptably high risk of serious injury" in side impact crashes.

Which? is a well-respected consumer magazine

A Consumers' Association spokeswoman said the report itself was accurate but she apologised for the "confusion" caused by the way it had been misrepresented.

Daewoo said it wanted to reassure customers it was committed to providing the highest levels of safety equipment in all its cars. It said they exceeded all European safety legislation.

The Korean-based firm was threatening to sue the Consumers' Association but is now thought unlikely to take further action.

The tests were carried out at the Transport Research Laboratory at Crowthorne, Berkshire, and at the TNO testing centre in the Netherlands.

A spokeswoman for the TRL said: "Euro NCAP was set up to give consumers an informed choice about the safety of the cars on the market. We are not telling people what car they should or shouldn't buy."

She said all new models have to pass basic safety standards which include a frontal impact test at 30mph into a concrete block. This will soon be increased to 40mph.