US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has met the head of Egypt's top military council, Field Marshal Mohamad Hussein Tantawi, on the second day of her visit to the country.

Clinton discussed the transition of power to newly elected President Mohammed Mursi and stressed the need to protect the rights of all Egyptians.

Mursi and the military have been in conflict over parliament's dissolution.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces shut down the chamber, dominated by Mursi's Islamist allies, before he was formally sworn in last month.

It also stripped the new president, elected in the country's first freely contested leadership vote earlier in June, of many of his powers.

Mursi, of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, tried to reinstate parliament by decree last weekend.

However, the Supreme Constitutional Court has said the dissolution is final.