With friends like this, who needs enemies? Italy's refusal to allow 140 illegal immigrants rescued by the cargo vessel Pinar E to land at Lampedusa - contrary to international maritime law - has led to a diplomatic stand-off between Malta and Italy and a cooling in relations between the two countries not seen for several decades.

Italy's behaviour was unacceptable on several counts.

First and foremost, the International Convention on the Safety of Life at Sea has for years laid down, sensibly and practically, that people in distress in any search and rescue (SAR) area will be taken to the nearest safe port of call. That Italy and Spain have pushed for an amendment to the Convention, so that the country responsible for a particular SAR area would also be responsible for accepting all people rescued in it, is irrelevant because Malta has refused to accept it and the body responsible for such matters, the International Maritime Organisation, has not pronounced in their favour on the matter.

Secondly, it is manifestly unfair to expect a country of the size and population density of Malta to bear any greater share of the burden of illegal immigration than it already does. Lampedusa may itself be smaller than Malta - and the detention centres there may be overcrowded, as Italy claims - but the fact is that whenever illegal immigrants are landed initially in Lampedusa they have the whole hinterland of Italy, stretching to the Alps, to which they can be relocated. This has always happened. Moreover, by Italy's own admission, more than 70 per cent of boat people subsequently leave Italy for countries further north.

Thirdly, Italy's high-handed action, in the face of a long-standing international Convention - albeit disputed - against a fellow EU country and close ally smacks of the kind of gunboat diplomacy one would have thought had disappeared. Such behaviour cannot go unnoticed in Europe. Italy's treatment of the rescued refugees left stranded for several days outside Lampedusa was wrong at best and cruel at worst. If Italy's Home Affairs Minister, Roberto Maroni, sought by his unilateral action to pander to his domestic constituency in the hard-right Northern League, he has failed lamentably. Such matters have to be settled, as indeed they were, by diplomatic means.

There has been much speculation about Italian motives for their action, ranging from domestic politics in the run-up to the forthcoming European elections to the impact which any change in the boundaries of Malta's SAR region might have on oil exploration rights on the Medina Bank. Whatever the reason - the former would appear more likely because of immediacy - this issue must now move properly into the diplomatic sphere.

The Times has long maintained that the solution to Malta's illegal immigration problems lies in more effective diplomatic efforts. The Minister for Foreign Affairs must engage with the issue in a way that has hitherto been lacking. The efforts to be made cannot be limited to the Commission in Brussels but must include every capital in the European Union.

In addition, it is imperative that countries in the world body, the International Maritime Organisation, which trumps the EU on this issue, are made aware of the practical shortcomings and injustice inherent in Italy's proposals to alter the current international laws on rescue at sea.

Malta's limited diplomatic clout must be made to prevail on this crucial issue.