WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month’s Supreme Court ruling about detainees’ legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.

The high court ruling, which gave all detainees the right to petition federal judges for immediate release, has intensified discussions within the Bush administration about what to do with the roughly 270 detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“I’m sure that none of us want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walking around our neighborhoods,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said about al-Qaida’s former third in command.

President Bush strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court decision that the foreigners held under indefinite detention at Guantanamo have the right to seek release in civilian courts. The 5-4 ruling was the third time the justices had repudiated Bush on his approach to holding the suspects outside the protections of U.S. law.

The legal ramifications of the Supreme Court decision remain fuzzy, but it’s unlikely that a federal appeals court would order a detainee released into the United States even if a judge finds that the government was holding the detainee improperly.

A court might tell the Bush administration to let a prisoner go, but it presumably would be up to the executive branch to figure out where.