KABUL, May 24: The US military has begun a probe into claims Afghan prisoners were abused in its detention centres in Afghanistan, a military official said on Monday. The one-star general leading the investigation visited two sites in eastern Afghanistan, Lt Col Tucker Mansager said.

"General Jacoby is now into about the third day of a top-to-bottom review of all the coalition detainee facility and procedures review," he said. "He has already visited two of the remote transit facilities."

The exact location of all the US-run detention sites in Afghanistan is not known but Col Mansager had previously said they number around 20. Brig Gen Charles H. Jacoby is due to visit every prison site and will report to the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Lt Gen David Barno, by mid-June.

The review was prompted by allegations of abuse from three former Afghan prisoners, who spoke out in the wake of the publication of graphic photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

A former Afghan police colonel said he was assaulted and deprived of sleep last year. Pentagon officials last week revealed five prisoners had died in US custody in Afghanistan.

Previously only three deaths had been publicized: two in Dec 2002 at the main detention center at Bagram Air Base, where the US forces are headquartered, and one last year at the northeastern town of Asadabad.

Col Mansager said on Monday the United States was still considering a request by the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the Kandahar detention centres. The ICRC makes regular visits to the Bagram cells.

The occupation troops have detained hundreds of people with suspected links to the Taliban or Al Qaeda networks and most are kept at the primary facility at Bagram Air Base. -AFP