The Council's Parliamentary Assembly unanimously passed a resolution saying all-out bans on full veils in public would deny a basic right to women who wanted to cover their faces.

It qualified that right by saying veils, also known as burqas and niqabs, could be banned when public security or professional obligations required women to show their faces.

France, Belgium and Spain are considering a ban on full face veils in public and may outlaw them later this year. The Council's resolution has no legal weight against national laws.

Very few women among Europe's estimated 15 million Muslims wear them, but some politicians have made them into a symbol for all problems in assimilating some Muslims into European society.

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