Glenys Kinnock, one of Labour's most senior and best-known MEPs, has called on the Government to suspend use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions, saying Nato's safety assurances have not convinced the public.

"I don't think we can talk just about the technical reasons why a moratorium should not apply to weapons," she said. "Children in the Balkans are playing where there is a possibility that radioactivity may have effects. I have no scientific background, only a gut feeling that, as a politician, I have a responsibility to try to respond."

Nato has rejected the idea of a link between the arms and cases of leukaemia among European servicemen who spent time in the Balkans, saying there is no evidence.

Mrs Kinnock and six other Labour MEPs defied the party's official line and supported a call in the European Parliament on Wednesday for a suspension of the use of DU munitions pending further research.

She told The Independent that the Government had been "wrong-footed" by the furore and called on it to switch tack and support a temporary ban.

The World Health Organisation is sending a fact-finding mission to Kosovo next week to study the effects of DU ammunition on civilians.

Mrs Kinnock said: "I am sufficiently concerned to feel that it does need more exploration. I cannot put my hand on my heart and say there is no need to be worried. 'No evidence' is what people said about BSE."

Mrs Kinnock said she was concerned both about reports of the so-called "Balkan syndrome" among servicemen and about the threats to health in Bosnia and Kosovo. She praised The Independent which reported that, of the 5,000 Serbs who fled from Hadjici in Bosnia after Nato's bombing in 1995, at least 300 have died of unexplained cancers.