The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said this evening the United States should close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as soon as possible.
His comments come after the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly today for a resolution urging the prison be closed and inmates given a fair trail.
This followed the publication earlier today of a 40-page report, which had been largely leaked, in which five UN special envoys said the US was violating a host of human rights, including a ban on torture, arbitrary detention and the right to a fair trial - treatment amounting to torture.
The UN report said all those being held at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be released or charged and brought to trial - and the camp be shut down.
"The US government should close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay," the human rights' rapporteurs declared.
The UN
However, the White House savaged report, calling it "a discredit to the UN". White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the investigators had failed to examine the facts and that their time would be better spent studying other cases.
It "appears to be a rehash of some of the allegations that have been made by lawyers for some of the detainees and we know that al Qaeda detainees are trained in trying to disseminate false allegations," said Mr McClellan.
He also indicated that the calls to close the jail would fall on deaf ears. "These are dangerous terrorists that we're talking about that are there and I think we've talked about that issue before and nothing's changed in terms of our views," McClellan added.
Until that happened, the US government should "refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", they added.
The report noted harsh conditions, such as placing detainees in solitary confinement, stripping them naked, subjecting them to severe temperatures, and threatening them with dogs could amount to torture, which is banned in all circumstances and in all wars.
Scott McClellan.
"The excessive violence used in many cases during transportation . . . and forced-feeding of detainees on hunger strike must be assessed as amounting to torture," the report said.
In London, UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour told the BBC she saw no alternative to closing the prison at the US naval base in Cuba - where some 500 terrorism suspects are held, many of them for four years, without trial.
Speaking ahead of the release of the report, Ms Arbour said that, although she did not endorse every recommendation it made, the US should put inmates on trial or release them and shut down the prison.
The US denies that most of the rights laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Washington is a signatory, apply to Guantanamo Bay.
Agencies