A third of Britons believe that a woman is partially or totally responsible for being raped if she has behaved in a flirtatious manner, an Amnesty International survey suggests.

More than a quarter said that they thought a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy clothing, or was drunk.

Around one in 12 people believed that a woman was totally responsible if she'd had many sexual partners, while more than a third held the same view if the woman had failed to clearly say "no" to the man.

"This poll shows that a disturbingly large proportion of the public blame women themselves for being raped," said Kate Allen of Amnesty International UK.

"It is shocking that so many people will lay the blame for being raped at the feet of women themselves and the government must launch a new drive to counteract this sexist 'blame culture'."

The survey also revealed that the vast majority of the British population has no idea how many women are raped every year in the UK, with 96 per cent of those polled saying they either didn't know the true extent of rape or that they thought it was far lower than the true figure.

Only 4 per cent of respondents even thought the number of women raped exceeds 10,000 per year when the true figure is likely to be well in excess of 50,000.

The British Crime Survey 2001 indicates that there were at least 47,000 female victims of rape in England and Wales in 2000.

"In addition to uncovering disturbing attitudes over women being 'to blame', this poll also reveals the scale of public ignorance of the unacceptably high numbers of women raped every year in the UK as well as the dreadfully low conviction rates," added Allen.