Mr Menon met Deputy Secretary John Negroponte and Under Secretary Bill Burns to discuss 'our continuing cooperation to find and bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks', said Mr Gordon Duguid, a department spokesman.

'They also discussed a wide array of bilateral issues, including space cooperation, and talk about implementing the US-India Civil Nuclear Initiative,' he added in a statement.

During a stop in London on her way to India for a 'solidarity' visit, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Pakistan on Monday to provide 'total' cooperation with India over the Mumbai attacks.

Dr Rice, who held talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband in London, declined to comment on reports that a Pakistan-based group could be behind the attacks which left more than 170 people dead.

'I don't want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is the time for a complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation and that is what we expect,' she told reporters.

India's Deputy Home Minister Shakeel Ahmad said on Monday the Mumbai attackers were all from Pakistan - the strongest such claim since the 60-hour bloodbath which ended Saturday.

Suspicion has fallen in particular on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group fighting Indian control of disputed Kashmir. The group was behind a December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi which pushed the neighbours close to war.

The White House said on Monday that it had no reason to doubt Pakistan's assertion that it was not involved in the shooting and bombings in Mumbai. -- AFP