Saudi Arabia's treatment of women activists jailed after campaigning for the right to drive is "cruel, inhuman and degrading" and may amount to torture, according to a report by a cross-party group of UK MPs.

At least eight female campaigners are being held in Saudi prisons where human rights group say they are facing beatings, electric shocks, sexual assaults and threats of rape by government jailers.

A panel made up of a Conservative, a Labour, and a Liberal Democrat MP investigated the allegations and concluded they are “likely to be true” and called for the immediate release of the jailed women.

“The Detainees’ treatment constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and could meet the threshold for torture under both Saudi Arabian and International law,” the panel of MPs wrote.

The parliamentarians warned that responsibility for the alleged torture could reach all the way to Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, if he ordered it or allowed it to continue.

Crown Prince Mohammed already faces widespread accusations that he ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist. Saudi Arabia denies that he was involved or aware of the killing.