She is due to meet both sides but has admitted that she will not be presenting any concrete new proposals.

Rice will also visit Arab capitals to rally support for President Bush's new strategy in Iraq, which includes sending 21,500 extra US troops.

She warned that the US will oppose any Iranian or Syrian interference in Iraq.

Rice was set to hold talks with Israeli ministers later last night and will see Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas today, before wrapping up this stage of her tour with talks with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert on Monday.

She has said she expects intensive consultations but has played down any hopes of a major breakthrough and stressed that she had not come to the region with a plan to end the conflict.

"I think anything that is an American plan is bound to fail, " she said.

"The United States is not going to succeed in this alone. This has to have an Arab voice - Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia.

"It certainly has to have the voice of the reasonable factions among the Palestinians, like Abu Mazen [Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas]. And it has to have an Israeli voice."

The US is hoping to shore up Abbas whose Fatah faction has been locked in a power struggle with the governing Hamas movement.

Washington is planning to provide $85m to help train and equip Abbas's presidential guard.

Tensions between Fatah and Hamas appeared to have eased somewhat, with both Abbas and Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas urging national unity after weeks of feuding.