A separable identity-based ring signature scheme has been constructed as a fundamental cryptographic primitive for protecting user privacy. Using the separability property, ring members can be selected from arbitrary domains, thereby, giving a signer a wide range of ways to control privacy. In this paper we propose a generic method to construct efficient identity-based ring signature schemes with various levels of separability. We first describe a method to efficiently construct an identity-based ring signature scheme for a single domain, in which a signer can select ring identities by choosing from identities defined only for the domain. Next, we present a generic method for linking ring signatures constructed for a single domain. Using this method, an identity-based ring signature scheme with a compact structure, supporting multiple arbitrary domains can be designed. We show that our method outperforms the best known schemes in terms of signature size and computational costs, and that the security model based on the separability of identity-based ring signatures, presented in this paper, is highly refined and effective by demonstrating the security of all of the proposed schemes, using a model with random oracles.