United States (US) President Barack Obama has signed into law a measure that would bar entry to any United Nations (UN) ambassador whom the US says has engaged in terrorist activity.

The law came as a response to Iran's pick of a UN envoy linked to the student militants who overran the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

The US has already denied Hamid Aboutalebi a visa, and Obama said he would treat the new law as advisory.

Aboutalebi has said that he acted merely as a translator on a couple of occasions for the hostage-takers, an account corroborated by some of the activists.

Iran has lodged a formal complaint with the UN over the rejection.

The bill that Obama signed into law today passed both houses of Congress.

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