LONDON — Government snooping into phone networks is extensive worldwide, one of the world’s largest cellphone companies revealed Friday, saying that several countries demand direct access to its networks without warrant or prior notice.

The detailed report from Vodafone, which covers the 29 countries in which it operates in Europe, Africa and Asia, provides the most comprehensive look to date at how governments monitor mobile phone communications. It amounts to a call for a debate on the issue as businesses increasingly worry about being seen as worthy of trust.

Wiretapping of phones and accessing of call records for law-enforcement purposes is a decades-old and accepted practice even in the most open democracies. If backed by a court, police can request cooperation from phone companies – a valuable tool for pursuing criminals.

But the most explosive revelation in Vodafone’s report is that in six countries, authorities require direct access to an operator’s network – bypassing legal niceties like warrants and eliminating the need to get case-by-case cooperation from phone-company employees. It did not name the countries for legal reasons and to safeguard employees working there.

“In those countries, Vodafone will not receive any form of demand for lawful interception access as the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link,” the report said.

Vodafone would not say which countries have established these direct links. But in an exhaustively researched appendix to the report, the U.K.-based company sheds light on the legal frameworks that surround government interception in the 29 countries. The appendix reveals that six countries – Albania, Egypt, Hungary, Ireland, Qatar and Turkey – have provisions that allow authorities to request unfettered access.

In two other countries, India and the U.K., legal provisions are unclear as to whether government officials are allowed to have direct access.

Vodafone’s report comes one year after former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. and other countries’ intelligence agencies routinely and indiscriminately gather and store huge amounts of data from phone calls and Internet communications.

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