The British secret service, MI5, is setting up a telephone hotline to encourage the public to come forward with information that could help intelligence operations.

The secret service is breaking cover as it looks for help in the fight against international terrorism, organised crime and arms smuggling.

MI5 Director-General Stephen Lander has ordered the telephone line so the public can pass on potentially vital information.

Previously contact with the service has been via a Post Office box number and MI5 has been largely as inaccessible as possible to the general public.

Since the end of the Cold War, MI5 has concentrated on new areas such as intelligence operations against the IRA and overseas threats, particularly Islamic militants.

Agents are also heavily involved in interception, surveillance and manipulation.

It has been brought in to help wage war on organised crime, including the laundering of crime-generated money.

There is also growing concern about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the international smuggling of nuclear materials and the threatened use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by rogue states and extremists.

Mr Lander firmly believes that the policy of greater openness surrounding MI5 will significantly aid its work.

Since he replaced Dame Stella Rimington as the head of MI5 in April 1996, he has moved with great care, gradually introducing a number of important initiatives.

Advertisements are now published to recruit graduates as intelligence officers and the first MI5 documents have been released from the service's archives relating to the First World War.

Further documents covering the Second World War are expected to be released during 1998.

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