A CONFIDENTIAL report sent to the US Government four months ago declared that the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay included beatings and physiological abuse that amounted to torture, according to a summary leaked to the press yesterday.

The report, from the International Committee of the Red Cross, was based on a visit to the US base in Cuba by ICRC officials in June. The report, sent to the Administration in July and leaked to The New York Times yesterday, said ICRC inspectors found a system devised to break the will of prisoners through “humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions”.

It added: “The construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture.”

The report said that prisoners were exposed to loud and persistent noise and music, and to prolonged cold. It also said detainees were subject to “some beatings”, and that indefinite detention without charge was unacceptable.

The New York Times said the report did not mention how many of the 550 detainees being held there were subjected to such treatment.

The ICRC team also found that medical personnel at Guantanamo provided information about prisoners’ mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, a practice that a human rights expert told the paper was in violation of international ethical standards.

A Pentagon spokesman said that Red Cross officials had “made their view known”.

“The US operates a safe, humane and professional detention operation at Guantanamo that is providing valuable information in the war on terrorism,” the statement said.

Personnel assigned to Guantanamo “go through extensive professional and sensitivity training to ensure they understand the procedures for protecting the rights and dignity of detainees”.

Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, said: “It’s their point of view,” but it was not shared by the Bush Administration.

Many of the Guantanamo detainees, who were transferred from military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, have been there for almost three years without access to lawyers, a policy that has been criticised by Britain and other countries. Only four have been charged. Several Britons have been released, but four remain there.

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