Sir Ian Blair, the new Metropolitan police commissioner, is to challenge the government's ban on reporting some terrorist trials, arguing that it undermines the confidence of the Muslim community in the police.

Britain's most senior police officer is to write to the attorney-general, Lord Goldsmith, asking him to explore whether he can avoid putting a reporting ban on terrorist prosecutions going through the courts this year. Sir Ian told a Guardian public services conference that it was wrong that the Muslim community were faced with a number of high profile terrorist arrests followed by total silence as to what had happened to them.