Foreign students banned from British university science courses because they might learn how to make nuclear and chemical weapons

Security concerns led to hundreds of higher education applications being rejected - but MPs want similar controls in place for British-born students

Campaigners protest at the Faslane naval base on the Clyde, home of the Trident Submarine fleet, in March 2007 (Getty)

Foreign students have been banned from learning about nuclear, biological and chemical warfare at UK universities over security concerns, it has been revealed.

Some 739 international students have been prevented from taking certain university courses over fears they may use the knowledge to orchestrate terrorist attacks under the Academic Technology Approval Scheme.

The scheme was launched by the government in 2007 to vet students from outside the EU when they apply to certain science courses which could be used to make weapons of mass destruction.

But MPs have criticised the limits of the measure which does not extend to British-born students.

Speaking to the Sun on Sunday, the chairman of the Committee on Arms Exports Controls, Sir John Stanley MP, said: “The fact 739 students have had to be barred indicates this is grounds for serious concern.

“It is extraordinary given the threat we face for the Government to go on refusing to extend this to those in the UK.

“We have made the recommendation for at least two years but it has been consistently rejected.”

According to the Foreign Office, 20,000 applications were made under the scheme by would-be foreign students last year.

Last month, it launched a new website to make the scheme more accessible after fending off criticism by a House of Lords report which said the scheme was contributing to UK universities' struggle to recruit international students.

Tobias Ellwood, the Coalition's minister for counter proliferation, said: “The UK’s higher education sector is important to the British economy and it is important that we get the balance right between meeting our international security commitments and supporting our higher education institutions.”

The number of Western citizens who have gone to join the Isis militant group is now estimated to have reached 3,400, according to NBC.

Five girls at an East London secondary school were made subject to a travel ban this week after three fellow pupils, Kadiza Sultana, 16, Shamima Begum, 15, and Amira Abase, 15, disappeared in mid-February and travelled to Syria.