The suicides of three prisoners at Guantanamo Bay will come under further scrutiny when the controversial camp is visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Guards found three detainees - two Saudis and a Yemeni - hanged from ceilings of cells in the maximum security section of the camp at a United States Naval base in Cuba on Saturday.

The deaths have already led to an escalation in international criticism of the camp where most suspects have been held without charge for up to four years.

Now, the ICRC,- the only independent agency allowed access to detainess, has been granted permission to make an unscheduled visit to the base in the next few days.

Vincent Lusser, a spokesman for the organisation, stressed that his officials would not be launching an investigation, but added: "If we feel we need to share concerns, we’ll do so bilaterally with the US authorities."

A doctor and Arabic translator will be among the delegation, which will assess the overall mood of the camp and attempt to establish the detainees' perspective on the deaths. The three men had been spoken to by ICRC workers before, who had raised concerns over the mental health of detainees.

"We hope it can take place this week, but I don’t yet have a day," Mr Lusser said. "It was not scheduled. This is a special visit."

The agency will not disclose specifics about its contacts with detainees but does discuss any concerns with officers running the base. It has not commented on commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris's condemnation of the co-ordinated suicides as "acts of assymetric warfare". The Bush Administration moved to distance itself from this statement last night, which has provoked condemnation from lawyers representing the inmates.

As attention shifted to how the episode would tarnish the already battered image of the United States in the Middle East, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "I would say that we have serious concern anytime anybody takes their own life. I would not characterise it as a 'PR stunt'."

The deaths, which come on top of reports from lawyers representing inmates of mental torture and force-feeding of hunger strikers, have added to concerns at the treatment of detainees at the camp, most of whom were detained during the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The European Union has pledged to renew its calls for the facility to be closed down "as soon as possible" at a summit with President George Bush in Vienna next week.

The ICRC has been visiting Guantanamo since January 2002. The US is holding some 460 men accused of links to Afghanistan’s Taleban or the al-Qaeda terror network.

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