Bernard Hogan-Howe, the new commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has said he is "open minded" about transferring responsibility for counter-terrorism to the new National Crime Agency.
The police chief was speaking to MPs during a select committee hearing on the England riots and the role of the commissioner on Tuesday.
Scotland Yard currently takes charge of co-ordinating counter terrorism efforts in the UK, but some have called for those powers to move to the NCA when it becomes operational in December 2012.
The chief constable of Warwickshire, Keith Bristow, was chosen to head up the NCA on Monday.
"There are significant arguments both ways," Hogan-Howe told the Home Affairs select committee on the transfer of powers.
The Met would always have a role in counter-terrorism since it makes up 23 per cent of the UK's police force, he added.
Howe also accepted that preliminary investigations into the Met's riot response in July showed that a lack of information and flexibility had put it on "the back foot".
"We need more officers available … and they need to have more flexibility," he said. "We need to make sure we’re much more flexible than we appeared over those three days."
Hogan-Howe added that the Met would continue with its "relentless follow-up" of criminals through the courts, but said that long-term policing strategies including working to break down gang culture and anti-social behaviour would also be important.
On police morale, Hogan-Howe acknowledged that officers in London were concerned with pay and conditions but said that morale remained strong.
"The officers that I speak to and the staff remain… determined to make a difference," he said. "I see that same spirit and I don't see any change in that."
Asked about the recent attempt by the Met to force journalists at The Guardian to release details of their sources on phone hacking, Hogan-Howe admitted that the Met had made a mistake.
"We got a lot of feedback that it was the wrong decision, so we changed," he said. "If we'd been inflexible we'd have been wrong."
Labour MP David Winnick suggested that the Met had made "a complete ass of itself" over the affair, but unsurprisingly Hogan-Howe said he didn't accept that was "a fair interpretation of a police officer who was working hard to get to the bottom of an investigation".
Bill Bratton, the so-called "super cop" and former head of the police in Boston, Los Angeles and New York credited with breaking elements of gang culture in those cities , who also gave evidence at the committee, said that contrary to some reports in the media he had not been brought in by the prime minister as a "gangs czar".
"I have no portfolio with the prime minister," Bratton said. "The assignment that I have, along with several dozen others … is to consult and talk about the issue of gang violence from the experience of different countries.
"I don’t think of myself as an adviser or a special adviser, I’ve been asked to provide consulting services at the conference."
He added that he was not being paid for giving his views, and had simply been invited to the UK to attend a conference on policing tactics.
Bratton also said that he did not expect to be asked to stand for the role of elected police commissioner in a UK county when those elections are held in 2012.