This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

The Obama administration is close to appointing a special criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged abuses by the CIA of prisoners held at detention centres around the world.

Eric Holder, the US attorney general, is tilting towards prosecution after reviewing Bush-era memos detailing individual cases relating to the treatment of prisoners. He is said to have been "sickened" by what he read. One of the memos, written in 2003, is due to be published, at least in part, later this month.

The US approach contrasts with that of the UK, where the foreign secretary, David Miliband, and the home secretary, Alan Johnson, yesterday continued to resist pressure over the torture and abuse of detainees abroad, saying it was not possible to eradicate the risk of mistreatment,

A US criminal investigation would focus on CIA agents and others alleged to have gone beyond guidelines laid down by senior figures in the Bush administration.

CIA officers who used waterboarding – an interrogation technique approved by the Bush administration but now judged by the Obama administration to be torture – would not be prosecuted.

But officers who subjected prisoners to excessive amounts of waterboarding could be the target of a criminal prosecutor. The Bush administration guidelines allowed waterboarding to be used more than once but questioned the effectiveness of the technique after several repetitions. In spite of that, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who admitted before being captured to being behind the 9/11 attacks, was subjected to waterboarding 183 times.

A CIA agent alleged to have brought a gun into an interrogation room to try to coerce a prisoner could also be investigated.

A senior justice department official, quoted in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, said that Holder envisioned an inquiry focused on "whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorised".

The official said Holder "has come reluctantly to consider" appointing a criminal prosecutor, adding that "he has an obligation to follow the law".

Barack Obama has been see-sawing on the issue, initially hinting that there could be prosecutions and then backtracking.

In the UK, a group of cross-party MPs demanded the publication of guidelines given to the security and intelligence agencies and more democratic accountability over MI5 and MI6.

As Miliband and Johnson yesterday restated the government's opposition to torture while conceding it was not possible to eradicate the risk of mistreatment, Sir John Scarlett, the head of MI6, denies his officers were complicit in torture in BBC Radio 4's A Century in the Shadows programme, which is broadcast on Monday.

The Commons foreign affairs committee says ministers must publish past and current guidelines for intelligence officers involved in interrogating terror suspects abroad. An MI5 officer is being investigated by Scotland Yard over the questioning of Binyam Mohamed, a UK resident, while he was held incommunicado in Pakistan.

Miliband is continuing to refuse to allow a seven-page summary of CIA intelligence about the circumstances surrounding Mohamed to be disclosed.