A court hearing next week has been put off until 11 December when General Pinochet is set to appear at Bow Street Magistrates Court in London to hear Mr Straw's decision.

Spain wants the 83-year-old extradited on charges of genocide, terrorism and torture relating to his reign which lasted from 1973 to 1990.

The BBC's David Loyn: "Many months of proceedings ahead"

The decision came after Chilean Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Insulza arrived in London to put pressure on Foreign Secretary Robin Cook over the release of former dictator.

General Pinochet was arrested last month while in London for health treatment.

The Lords ruled the general does not have immunity

His supporters are campaigning to bring him home but on Wednesday law lords said he was not immune to legal proceedings.

Lawyers acting for General Pinochet and the Spanish Government at the Bow Street hearing agreed the home secretary needed more time to consider representations from both sides.

The Chilean government has vowed to contest the Lords ruling, arguing that the UK should recognise General Pinochet's immunity as a senator and that Spain has no authority to judge crimes allegedly committed in Chile.

Tory on the attack

Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Howard, speaking in the Commons, accused the government of "blundering" in its handling of the matter.

He said its search for "an easy headline" threatened to upset the "delicate balance" in Chile between pro and anti-Pinochet feeling.

Jose Migual Insulza: Flying in from Santiago

Mr Howard said: "Its development is best left to the people of Chile themselves, free from the interference of a blundering overseas government in pursuit of a much-needed boost to its ethical foreign policy."

Labour's Donald Anderson, Foreign Affairs Select Committee chairman, said the home secretary would look at the nature of the jurisdiction to which General Pinochet might be transferred.

He said: "We have every confidence in the legal system in Spain. It's a friendly country.

"He can look at compassionate factors and whether the health of the individual is such that it would be improper to have him extradited."

Mr Anderson continued: "If one talks of compassion for an elderly gentlemen, if there is such compassion it is surely mightily outweighed by compassion for the victims of the terror which we know."

Meanwhile Amnesty International say Tory concerns about trade and recollection of Chile's support for the UK during the Falklands War are "red herrings".