The Sunday Times published data from 5,000 athletes, which it says reveals an "extraordinary extent of cheating". Athletics' world governing body, the IAAF, said the blood results were not positive tests or proof of doping.
"The fightback has to start here," Coe, an IAAF vice-president, said.
"It is a declaration of war on my sport. There is nothing in our history of competence and integrity in drug-testing that warrants this kind of attack."
The Sunday Times and German broadcaster ARD/WDR examined the results - which were leaked from an IAAF database - of 12,000 blood tests between 2001 and 2012.
The reports by the British and German media outlets claimed that more than 800 athletes - and a third of all medallists in endurance events at recent Olympics and World Championships - had suspicious blood test results and that they were not followed up by the IAAF.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the IAAF "refuted outright" any allegation it did not appropriately follow up suspicious profiles.
"The use of that database, however it got into their possession, displayed either breathtaking ignorance or a level of malevolence around a set of readings you simply cannot extrapolate beyond," Coe, who is standing in the IAAF presidential election on 19 August, added.
"The idea that my sport sat there either covering up wrongdoing or just being incompetent could not be wider of the mark."
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