Iraq's government faces calls for an international inquiry into abuse at a secret prison in Baghdad where inmates were reportedly tortured, beaten and starved.

The call by the Sunni-based Iraqi Islamic Party on Wednesday comes after revelations that about 170 detainees, mostly Sunni, were illegally held at a centre run by the Shia-dominated Interior Ministry, in a case likely to embarrass the US military supervising local security forces.

"We insist on having an international investigation," Islamic Party spokesman Alaa Makki said.

"There have been similar cases in the past, and investigations into them led to nothing," said another party spokesman, Ayad Samarrai.

"We want an international and impartial inquiry as we are beginning to think there are people high up in government who are responsible, or at least accomplices."

US forces blamed

Makki also blamed US-led forces for the abuse, saying it could not happen without "their green light".

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has ordered an investigation into the allegations, with a committee due to report its findings within two weeks.

The case came to light after US forces raided the underground facilities of an Interior Ministry complex in south Baghdad on Sunday.

Hussein Kamal, Iraq's deputy interior minister, told CNN television he saw evidence of torture.

"I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating. One or two detainees were paralysed. And some had their skin peeled off various parts of their body."

The Association of Muslim Scholars, the main Sunni religious organisation in Iraq, accused Interior Ministry services of "resorting to torture and ransoming prisoners".

Committee spokesman Shaikh Abd al-Salam al-Kubaissi said that his organisation had "filmed testimony of released detainees who had been tortured" and that the videos were handed over to Arab League chief Amr Mussa when he visited Baghdad last month.

Al-Kubaissi also accused Interior Ministry services of "detaining people at night in their homes on terrorist charges and then torturing them into making confessions, parts of which are then broadcast on television".
Some detainees were released a month or two later "after paying a bribe, with no charges being brought against them", al-Kubaissi added.
A scandal over the abuse by US forces of Iraqi detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison last year led to international condemnation of the US as it struggled to defend the March 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Sunni Arabs, who provide the backbone to the anti-US resistance, have repeatedly accused Iraq's pro-Shia security agencies of engaging in torture and extra-judicial executions.

PHOTO CAPTION

Tariq al-Hashimi, the secretary-general of the Iraqi Islamic Party, shows to journalists pictures of prisoners tortured in prisons, during a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2005. (AP)