MEDICAL examinations of former terrorism suspects held at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay found evidence of torture and other abuse that resulted in serious injuries and mental disorders, a human rights group says.

For the most extensive medical study of former US detainees yet published, Physicians for Human Rights had doctors and mental health professionals examine 11 former prisoners.

The group alleges it found evidence of torture and war crimes and accuses US military health professionals of allowing the abuse of detainees, denying them medical care and providing confidential medical information to interrogators that they then exploited.

"Some of these men really are, several years later, very severely scarred," said Barry Rosenfeld, a psychology professor at Fordham University who conducted psychological tests on six of the 11 detainees.

One Iraqi prisoner, identified only as Yasser, reported being subjected to electric shocks three times and being sodomised with a stick. His thumbs bore round scars consistent with shocking, according to the report obtained by the Associated Press.