The Foreign Office said last night that it would have to accept information gained from waterboarding if it could stop an imminent terrorist attack.
The admission follows claims by George W Bush, the former US president, that the waterboarding of prisoners – in which they feel like they are drowning – foiled plots in Britain. He wrote in a new book that the interrogation of three al-Qaeda suspects "helped break" plots to attack Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf in London.
Downing Street said it considered waterboarding to be torture, but did not say what it would do if offered information that came from such treatment. Foreign Office sources said they would have to act if it could save lives.
New guidance to intelligence officers makes clear the decision would have to be made by ministers.
A government spokesman said last night: "Appropriate action will be taken to ensure that the other country in question knows that we find the use of mistreatment totally unacceptable."
Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a speech last month that the service had "a professional and moral duty to act" on information that could save lives.
The plot to hijack planes to attack London was masterminded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man behind the Sept 11 attacks, who was waterboarded by CIA agents.
Four men in Saudi Arabia had already been recruited to fly the aircraft to London when the plot was allegedly thwarted.
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