ACCUSED war criminal Charles Zentai should be sent to Hungary to face murder charges, despite the High Court upholding a decision not to extradite him on war crimes, Labor backbencher Michael Danby has told parliament.

On Wednesday, the High Court upheld an earlier Federal Court decision preventing the Perth man's extradition to Hungary.

Zentai, 90, is accused of murdering an 18-year-old Jewish man in November 1944 while serving in the Hungarian army.

He denies the accusation as well as allegations he beat the man to death and threw his body into the Danube River.

In 2009 the federal government approved Zentai's extradition to Hungary but the decision was overturned on appeal in the Federal Court in August 2011.

The Federal Court ruled Zentai could not be extradited because the specific offence of "war crimes" did not exist in Hungarian law in 1944.

Mr Danby acknowledged the absence of such laws, but said the idea that in countries of Nazi-occupied Europe there would have been a specific offence of war crimes prior to 1945 demonstrated such black-and-white legalism and historicism that it was difficult to believe.

He called for Hungarian authorities to re-frame the terms of the extradition to force Zentai's return.

"Of course there was a charge of murder," Mr Danby told the parliament on Wednesday.

"In any system of justice, in my opinion, this man should have been extradited to face the charges that the Hungarian government has brought against him."

theaustralian.com.au