The United States remains confident that Israelis and Palestinians are determined to pursue direct peace talks revived by Washington this summer, despite Palestinian claims that negotiations had been "futile".

Since becoming Secretary of State in February, John Kerry has dedicated much of his effort on restarting peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, which were frozen in September 2010.

After six trips to the region in four months, he met negotiators from both sides -- Palestinian Saeb Erekat and Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni -- in Washington on July 29 and 30.

Secret bilateral meetings, with and without the presence of American sponsors, were then held in Jerusalem in August and early September.

Kerry picked up his personal dialogue with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas at London's Ritz Carlton on Sunday, the pair smiling and joking before holding lengthy private talks.

During an earlier stop-off in Paris, Kerry said he planned to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "shortly", but a State Department official said it was "premature" to talk of trilateral negotiations between the three men.

Kerry had earlier praised efforts to hold talks "despite tough decisions and despite pressure that exists on both sides.

"Both the Palestinians and Israelis have remained steadfast in their commitment to continuing the talks," Kerry said in Paris after a meeting with Arab League officials.

A senior Palestinian official on Wednesday dismissed Kerry's long-running efforts to broker peace, saying talks had been futile.

"Until now there has been no progress," the Palestine Liberation Organisation's Yasser Abed Rabbo told Voice of Palestine radio.

But a State Department official on Sunday told the travelling press that the Palestinian official was "ignorant of what's happening in the negotiations" and that his comments were "unhelpful".

"What they are saying is inaccurate and should not be taken as an indication of what actually happens in the negotiating room," he warned.

"It's unhelpful to the negotiations for these unnamed and in some cases named officials to be coming out and characterising things that they know nothing about."

Kerry also met in Paris with his Egyptian, Qatari and Saudi counterparts as part of efforts to engage the whole region in a solution.

"Something we learnt in a previous effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is if you don't have key Arab players in on the takeoff, you cannot expect them to be in on the landing," the US State Department official said.

"And we need them very much to be in on the landing of this effort...because their support and their anchoring of the agreement in an Arab base is going to be critical to the effort to ensure Palestinian support," he added.

During talks with Arab League officials, Kerry said there was agreement that "a final status agreement is important in enhancing regional security and stability throughout the Middle East".

Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah however criticised Israel for continuing to build Jewish settlements, saying it was damaging peace efforts.

"What we noticed is that each time a round of negotiations is to start it's preceded by an announcement of settlements," he said.

This "directly affects the negotiations", Attiyah said.

In line with Kerry's desire to keep the details of the negotiations secret in order to give the process a chance to work, little has leaked about the talks.

Ahead of the first bilateral meetings in Jerusalem on August 14, Israel announced plans to build more than 2,000 Jewish settler homes on Palestinian territory, in a move that angered Palestinian negotiators.

Kerry also urged the European Union to suspend new guidelines introduced in July forbidding its 28 member states from dealing with or funding any Israeli "entities" in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank and east Jerusalem.