Israel's foreign ministry is reviewing possible legal threats to its citizens abroad after its new ambassador to Denmark risked arrest on human rights charges because of his work with the security service.

The Israeli government is concerned that human rights activists in Europe might try to take legal action against a range of people - not just those with a high profile in the conflict with Palestinians.

Details of the investigation followed a dispute over Israel's appointment of Carmi Gillon as ambassador in Copenhagen. Mr Gillon, former head of the Shin Bet security service, had admitted authorising the torture of Arab suspects and was threatened with arrest under the United Nations torture convention until the Danish foreign ministry decided his diplomatic status took precedence.

Meanwhile, Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, could face legal action in Belgium over his indirect role in the 1982 massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut by Israel's Christian militia allies.

The foreign ministry was contacting unspecified countries whose laws cover non-citizens and acts committed outside their territories "to avoid an undue politicisation of the international criminal law."

Yehuda Blum, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and professor of international law, said: "It is a farcical situation because you have to ask yourself why doesn't anyone raise the question of operatives of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation who travel around the world".

But Aeyal Gross, a director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, cited Israel's demolition of houses and assassination of those it regards as terrorists as creating potential difficulties with other countries.

The intensification of Israel's conflict with Palestinians has coincided with the trend towards expanding jurisdiction for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Human rights advisers said Israel itself had set a precedent with the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal, for crimes committed before the state of Israel was set up.