The American General who runs Guantanamo Bay today claimed that detainees had provided crucial information about the four suicide attackers behind the July 7 London bombings.

Major General Jay Hood claimed that prisoners, some of whom have been held without charge at the controversial camp in Cuba for four years, have provided intelligence about the four suicide bombers whose rush-hour attack on three Tube trains and a bus killed 52 people.

Although more than 40 people have been arrested and five charged in connection with the failed copycat attack that followed two weeks later, no-one has yet been arrested over July 7 atrocity.

The Bush Administration has come under sustained criticism for the treatment of the alleged "enemy combatants" held in Camp Delta.

In an interview with the Reuters news agency, Mr Hood attempted to deflect this by suggesting that the facility was generating important information in the global War on Terror. He said that only now were some of those held captive beginning to crack.

Scotland Yard refused to confirm whether it had ever received any help from prisoners at the camp. A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said simply: "We are not prepared to discuss this matter."

Mr Hood told reporters: "After the attacks in London, there were a number of questions asked trying to understand who these people [the four suicide bombers] were and where they had been.

"A significant number of the men we’re holding here have lived in London, have lived in the United Kingdom. And so where we could answer their questions and provide background on movements, travels, financing, communications, means of communications, recruitment, training, that sort of thing, I think we have played an important role."

Although he refused to provide specific details, it is thought that Hood was referring to Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, who are both thought to have spent time at training camps in Afghanistan with detainees now held at Guantanamo.

All British citizens who had been held at Guantanamo have now been released but non-citizens who lived in the UK are among the nearly 500 prisoners at the remote naval base.

Five months on from the attacks, British agents are still not sure whether an explosives expert was sent to Yorkshire to help the four to assemble the rucksack bombs. Nor do they know why primed devices were left in the bombers' hire car at Luton railway station, suggesting that there should have been a fifth bomber.

General Hood told Reuters: "Of course if we had people here at Guantanamo Bay who had some specific knowledge -- locations, personalities, monies, communications during their time in the United Kingdom, we’d certainly provide that."

The United States began sending prisoners to Guantanamo four years ago but Hood said some have only recently begun providing useful information.

On a recent visit to Washington, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised concerns over Guantanamo with President Bush, who rejected her suggestion that it should be closed down.

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