The public inquiry into the death of Baha Musa, the hotel receptionist who died in British custody in Basra, will also investigate claims that a senior general and a defence minister misled MPs and peers over the use of torture in Iraq.

Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, promised yesterday that the inquiry would consider discrepancies between assurances, given to MPs in 2004 and 2006, that British soldiers were aware that certain “conditioning” techniques were banned and evidence that later came to light.

Mr Browne made the pledge after the publication over the weekend of a report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which claims that the MPs and peers were misled.

In 2004 Adam Ingram, then the Armed Forces Minister, insisted that the training of British interrogators took into account banned techniques, such as hooding and stress positioning. And in 2006 Lieutenant-General Robin Brims told the Joint Committee on Human Rights that rank and file soldiers were aware that they could not use the banned conditioning techniques, which are used to “soften up” detainees before questioning.

Both claims were undermined by later evidence in the court martial of Corporal Donald Payne, who was jailed for 12 months for inhuman treatment of prisoners, manslaughter and perverting the course of justice relating to Mr Musa’s death. Six other soldiers charged with his death were acquitted. The court martial found that hooding and stress positioning was part of The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment’s standard practice.

The Ministry of Defence this month agreed to pay £2.8 million to Mr Musa’s family. Mr Musa, 26, died in 2003 after suffering 93 injuries while being held in detention for 36 hours.

Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP who chairs the joint committee, said: “We have yet to receive an explanation from the MoD for the discrepancies in evidence given to the committee by [Mr] Ingram in 2004 and Lieutenant-General Brims in 2006, on the use of these illegal conditioning techniques.”

Mr Browne said: “Last week I announced the terms of reference for the public inquiry into the death of Baha Musa. Those terms of reference are sufficiently broad to enable the inquiry to conduct a thorough examination of the circumstances surrounding that death and the committee has acknowledged that many of the concerns it has raised in its report may be investigated by the inquiry.”

He added: “Since 2003 we have made considerable improvements to the training and information given to soldiers deploying on operations about the correct and humane treatment of detainees. We have always been clear that we expect our forces to comply fully with international law. We will not tolerate anything less.”

A report published this year by Brigadier Robert Aitken, the director of Army personnel strategy, concluded that it was likely that the bans on interrogation techniques were thought to refer only to Northern Ireland operations by intelligence services. The techniques had been banned after use in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, said: “We are meant to believe that it is just a few bad apples, but the evidence from courts martial and other cases shows that nothing could be further from the truth.”

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