The UK's Muslim community is upset about tonight's episode of BBC One's spy drama Spooks, the plot of which centres around a Birmingham mosque's attempts to run a fundamentalist terror campaign on British soil. As well as spokesmen for Muslim organisations doing the rounds talking about an unfair, imbalanced portrayal of their faith, the message boards on the show's own website have also attracted a vocal element accusing the BBC of trying to incite racial hatred.

If reports that Birmingham Central Mosque has been defaced with graffiti reading "bombers" are true, then that's deeply objectionable, an insult to the millions of law-abiding Muslims in the country, and gives both the local community and the country as a whole a great deal of cause for concern.

However, in demanding that the BBC pull the episode in question, I still can't help feeling some parts of the community are being just a little over-sensitive and unreasonable. Here we have a high-quality drama series, lauded for its tension and production values, which attempts to show all the possible threats to British security. In past episodes, the MI5 team have had to counter the dangers posed by dissident Irish republicans, Serbian warlords, murderous white supremacists, militant pro-lifers, and an al-Qaeda cell, so it's not like British Muslims are being singled out.

In order to be successful, a contemporary thriller has to be sufficiently grounded in reality to allow the audience to suspend its disbelief, while being careful not to stretch its credibility, and the threat from fundamentalist terrorists is one that the world currently has to cope with. American television is awash with it. Not only has Jack Bauer just thwarted a plot to nuke LA in 24 (we've only reached 11pm here in the UK, so no spoilers please folks) but even the sage heads in the Venerable Jed Bartlett's administration are making hawkish noises about the Middle East.

If the world situation means that Britain has to face a few uncomfortable home truths, so be it. The storyline in Spooks isn't claiming that all Muslims are bad, any more than its plot about pro-lifers claimed all Christians believed salvation lay in Semtex - indeed in tonight's episode an Algerian agent provides MI5 with the information that allows them to get their man. The show should not be seen as a rallying cry to be wary of the greater Muslim population, and especially not an excuse to run hate campaigns against them, an outcome which would only serve to divide the country, and make the minor possibility of terrorism more likely. But nor should we allow the passions aroused by discussion of religion to cloud our sight of possible threats to the UK and its people.

With incidents such as April's Tel Aviv suicide bombing, British prisoners at Camp X-Ray, shoe bomber Richard Reid, and the allegations against certain elements at the Finsbury Park mosque, it's clear that more young British Muslim men are becoming active in supporting the movements more traditionally associated with Islamic countries. With Tony Blair having angered a whole lot of people with his senseless war on Iraq, it's therefore not impossible that some day a militant group or a lone fanatic may conduct a violent act on the British mainland, however unlikely or frightening that eventuality may be.

None of this means, of course, that the debate over the episode in question can not be a good and useful thing. Discussion of the issues at stake allow all sides to state facts and dispel myths - something principally of use to the Muslim community, who still struggle to be accepted in some areas of the country. If they can use the argument to develop understanding and acceptance among the wider population, then I'm with them all the way.

One could argue that the BBC's use of a sensationalist storyline was trivialising a serious issue for ratings-grabbing hokum that risks inciting racial hatred - and there's probably a certain amount of truth in that. Even so, once we stop confronting possibilities in our popular media, we become less aware of them and, by logical conclusion, possibly more prone. At the risk of sounding like Blair, this kind of thing helps the public remain vigilant against the threats we all face.

Edge of Darkness in the 80s probably did more than most to stress the danger posed by nuclear weapons. Who could argue that was not a good thing? Similarly, if the row over this episode of a trivial TV show allows mosques across the country to examine whether their communities are being used for purposes of a less than holy nature, surely that too is something that must be done.