Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu has apologized to the global Islamic community over cartoons in a Danish newspaper caricaturing Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

But he also urged Muslims incensed over the publication to exercise tolerance and forgiveness in their protests.

"We would wish to send to the [Muslim] community the message of our distress, and hope they will be able ... in the end to forgive what has really upset them very deeply," said Tutu, according to Ecumenical News International.

The archbishop was attending the dedication of an All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) ecumenical centre named after him in Nairobi on February 9.

The former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town said Christians would be distressed if someone had portrayed Jesus in an offensive way, and Jews if the holocaust was depicted in a dismissive manner.

"We pray their hearts will be persuaded and if protests have to continue, we hope the protests would be peaceful and dignified, as it is befitting of people of faith," said Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 leading peaceful protests against South Africa's racist apartheid system.

Muslims across the globe have protested, sometimes violently, against the cartoons which they say are a blasphemy because they carried an image of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).