Labour hit out yesterday at the "shameful" effect the police's stop-and-search powers have on ethnic minority communities.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has called for an urgent reform of the way the powers are used by police, including banning officers from targeting specific people for stop and searches.

Ms Cooper also called for current guidance on avoiding race discrimination to be replaced with legislation.

Her intervention follows claims that David Cameron vetoed plans drawn up by Home Secretary Theresa May to significantly curb the use of stop and search.

Ms Cooper wrote to Ms May to warn: "This issue is too important to be kicked into the long grass.

"It goes to the heart of people's trust in the police and the misuse of stop-search has the potential to undermine effective community policing."

Ms Cooper said that while it was agreed that police needed stop-and-search powers, "we know that only a small proportion of searches lead to arrest and hundreds of thousands of searches each year currently lead to nothing but resentment."

Figures revealed that 27 per cent of the 8,783 stop-and-search records reviewed by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary between October 2012 and April 2013 did not include sufficient grounds to justify the use of the power.

Young people in ethnic minority communities remain seven times more likely to be stopped than white people.