A Scottish council which said it was willing to consider providing a state-funded Muslim school has stressed it has no specific plans to do so at present.
East Renfrewshire Council said that it would look at the case for a state-funded school if there was the demand from Muslim parents.
The council is already responsible for running Calderwood Lodge Primary School - a Jewish primary school in Glasgow.
But the local authority has made it clear that no funding had been committed to providing a school.
The move followed comments from the convener of the council's education committee, Jim Fletcher, who said that if a need was demonstrated the authority would look into it.
"We have very close links with our Muslim parents and we try to accommodate the needs of our Muslim parents in our schools," said Mr Fletcher.
"But if Muslim parents want a separate school and they feel that that would best suit their wishes then absolutely this council would be delighted to try and accommodate that and set up a Muslim school."
But Fred Forester, a former deputy secretary of teaching union the EIS, believes there should be fewer, not more, religious schools.
Mr Forester said: "Religion should be a private, family matter, which is dealt with in the homes or the places of worship.
"That is the case for a large number of religious groups in Scotland, they are not demanding separate schools, they are quite prepared to have their own religious instruction in the home, in the places of worship."
The council later issued a statement seeking to clarify its position.
"We are not committed to providing a Muslim school in East Renfrewshire, what we are saying is that we are a listening council and if approached officially by the Muslim community with a demand for such a school we would explore the possibility of providing one," it said.
"There is no funding identified and we do not know if there would be enough pupils to make such a school viable."
Osama Saeed, the Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association in Britain, said there was a need among the Muslim community for specialist schools.
Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland, he added: "In Glasgow alone there are around 30,000 Muslims which is a significant amount of the population for which there is no [separate] school when other faith groups do have these schools.
"I would imagine that Glasgow City Council will come under a fair amount of pressure to look at school provision."
Catholic schools
The move by East Renfrewshire Council comes just a few months after a private Islamic school in Glasgow, Iqra Academy, closed its doors after a damning inspectors report.
The school closed after Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education reported that education provided for secondary pupils and boarders was unsatisfactory and that the welfare of the school's students was not being safeguarded.
The report found that the learning and teaching was of poor quality, there were concerns about the school ethos and management was "ineffective".
There are currently 418 publicly-funded Catholic schools in Scotland, accounting for approximately 15% of all publicly-funded schools.
In addition there are three Episcopalian schools and one Jewish school in the public sector.
The number of faith schools in the independent (private) sector includes one Muslim school and a range of Christian schools.