AOL has fallen foul of a pressure group for allowing anti-semitic terms to be used in its email accounts, screen names and message boards.

The company has a policy of blocking names and messages that could be offensive to minority groups but, according to the Institute for the Study and Prevention of Hate Crimes, it has fallen short.

The group said that a user under the screen name of 'urakike' had posted "pro-terrorist" anti-semitic notes on an AOL message board.

A spokesman for the Institute told worldnetdaily.com that AOL was guilty of operating double standards because its filters are capable of blocking out terms which are offensive to other racial groups.

It added that, when the offending email names were pointed out to AOL, the company had not cancelled or deleted all the "emotionally traumatising" messages.

AOL said that it had filters in place to stop racist names, but admitted that they could be bypassed.

The firm has a Community Action Team that handles hate messages found on the service, and said that it takes action as soon as it is told of an instance where a member is not abiding by AOL's user rules.