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Bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was killed in 2011 when US Special Forces raided his hideout within the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
Pakistan wasn't informed beforehand.
"I will always remember how we Pakistanis were embarrassed when the Americans came into Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden, martyred him," Khan said.
Khan used the word "shaheed" - a reverential Arabic term for a martyr of Islam.
Opposition leader and former secretary of state Khawaja Asif criticized Mr. Khan, calling bin Laden an "ultimate terrorist".
"He destroyed my nation, and [Khan] is looking him a martyr," Mr. Asif said in parliament.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, whose Pakistan Peoples Party was in power when bin Laden was killed, accused the prime minister of appeasing violent extremism.
Meena Gabeena, a high-profile Pakistani activist, wrote on Twitter: "Muslims everywhere the planet are struggling thanks to the discrimination they face due to recent terrorism and our PM makes it worse by calling [Osama Bin Laden] a martyr of Islam!"
Mr. Khan's speech came as Pakistan's ministry rejected a US state department report accusing Pakistan of continuing to be a secure haven for regionally focused terrorist groups.
"While the report recognizes that al-Qaeda has been seriously degraded within the region, it neglects to say Pakistan's crucial role in decimating al-Qaeda, thereby diminishing the threat that the terrorist organization once posed to the planet," the ministry said.
Mr. Khan, a former cricketer, has previously been criticized as sympathetic towards the Taliban, and branded "Taliban Khan" by opponents.
Following his controversial bin Laden remark on Thursday, Afrasiab Khatak, a nationalist former senator and former head of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), said during a tweet that the prime minister had been delivered to power to implement "Project Taliban".
In a TV interview four years ago, Mr. Khan refused to call bin Laden a terrorist when pressed by the interviewer.
Imran Khan called Osama bin Laden a martyr, not due to any ideological commitment to the 9/11 mastermind but because it had been politically convenient.
The world has come an extended way from the politics of 9/11, but Islamist militancy remains the most weapon of Pakistan's powerful military establishment to push for its perceived aims in India and Afghanistan.
Bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders of that point are still revered by the militants, and that they function as useful tools in recruiting people to the cause. Any move to officially downgrade Bin Laden's status therefore might be counter-productive.
Mr. Khan is seen by his critics as on the brink of the military establishment - a proxy who has been catapulted to power during a 2018 election allegedly rigged by the military.
His word choice on Thursday wasn't an accident. Many noted that in his speech he initially used the word "killed" for bin Laden, then stopped himself and corrected to "martyred".
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