Britain and Poland must work closely within the European Union to defend national sovereignty and prevent the creation of a United States of Europe, Leszek Miller, the Polish prime minister, said yesterday.

"Our view is not very different from the view of the United Kingdom on this issue, in particular as far as the role of the nation state is concerned," he said. "We also believe the role of national parliaments must be stressed. We are not for the model of a United States of Europe. We are very sensitive to such values as sovereignty and identity.

"Poland fought for her independence for such a long time" that any attempt to create a federal Europe would be unacceptable to Polish public opinion, Mr Miller told The Telegraph. "All these pro-federal trends would be badly received in Poland."

The prime minister, attending ceremonies in London marking the 60th anniversary of the death of the wartime leader Gen Wladyslaw Sikorski, pointed out that both then and now Britons and Poles have fought side by side.

"We fought arm-in-arm during the Second World War and today arm-in-arm we are working for the normalisation and stabilisation of the situation in Iraq, and we are on the right side," he said.

Poland infuriated the French and German governments by committing troops to the American-led campaign in Iraq.

Mr Miller said Poland had done nothing to "inflame this conflict" with France and Germany and emphasised that he had no desire to antagonise either country. He said Poland was generally "positive" about the draft European constitution.

Mr Miller made plain Poland would continue to support the American and British efforts to rebuild Iraq and is keen to send large numbers of civilian experts.

He pointed out that in the 1970s and '80s more than 30,000 Polish engineers and other workers helped to build roads and other installations in Iraq. He said many of these experts with local knowledge of Iraqi conditions were ready to return there.