Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself in his jail cell using a prison bed sheet that he wrapped around his neck and secured to a top bunk bed, it has been reported.

The 6ft tall convicted pedophile kneeled toward the floor after positioning his head inside the bed sheet's loop early on Saturday morning, the New York Post reported.

Epstein was found 'unresponsive' at around 6.30am in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Staffers were unable to revive him. He was then rushed to the infirmary inside the jail.

From there, he was placed in an ambulance and taken to New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead.

Since Epstein's suicide, there has been widespread speculation as to how he managed to kill himself after an earlier failed attempt to take his own life last month.

Prison procedure dictates that an inmate goes through a screening process to determine if they are at risk of harming or killing themselves.

A source told The New York Post the cell Epstein would have been held in have 'paper level sheets', a steel frame bed you cannot move, no light fixtures and no bars

Jeffrey Epstein's body is pictured being wheeled into New York Presbyterian-Lower Manhattan hospital on Saturday morning. His apparent suicide has left experts and former inmates puzzled as to how he was able to use the cell into an 'instrument of death'

If an inmate attempts suicide or harms themselves, as Epstein appears to have on July 24, they are placed under 24 hour supervision in a special cell with no access to material items.

Epstein had been placed on suicide watch after he was found a little over two weeks ago with bruising on his neck but he was taken off the watch at the end of July and therefore wasn't on it at the time of his death, a source has said.

A corrections officers had also not checked on the pedophile for several hours before he hanged himself in his cell in the special housing unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.

He had been left alone there despite guards being required to look in on him every 30 minutes, sources told The Washington Post.

And while the 66-year-old should have had a cellmate, the inmate scheduled to move in with him was mysteriously transferred on Friday just hours before he killed himself.

Investigators are said to be still looking into why Epstein, who had previously been on suicide watch, did not receive a new cellmate and how he was left alone and unmonitored.

A former close associate of the late mobster John Gotti Sr. has said that if he did kill himself inside his cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, he would have had to 'pay dearly' for help.

'If he killed himself someone had to have helped him,' Lewis Kasman, who visited Gotti at the facility several times in 1992, told The New York Post.

He added: 'That facility for years had issues of corruption, with correction officers bringing in food or cellphones for wealthy people.'

'There are cameras going 24/7 and they're watching 24/7. Someone had to give [Epstein] the equipment to kill himself and he had to pay for it dearly.'

A second source told the Post: 'There’s no way that man could have killed himself. I’ve done too much time in those units. It’s an impossibility.

'You have sheets, but they’re paper level, not strong enough.

'Could he have done it from the bed? No sir. There’s a steel frame, but you can’t move it. There’s no light fixture. There’s no bars.

'They don’t give you enough in there that could successfully create an instrument of death.'

Preet Bharara, a former Manhattan-based U.S. attorney, explained that guards generally remove any prisoner placed on suicide watch from the Special Housing Unit where Epstein was housed. The unit separates inmates such as accused sex offenders from the general population for their protection.

'So it seems that Epstein was in the Special Housing Unit (SHU) but not recently on suicide watch, which according to BOP's Suicide Prevention Program, requires removal from the SHU,' he tweeted on Saturday.

Bharara said he was dumbfounded, adding: 'It's possible Epstein was placed on suicide watch for some time and then returned to the SHU, prematurely. DOJ says FBI is investigating. Public deserves answers.

'There will both an FBI investigation + Inspector General investigation into Epstein's death.'

Corrections officers had not checked on the pedophile for several hours before he hanged himself in his cell. He had been left alone in his cell despite guards being required to look in on him every 30 minutes, sources said

The 66-year-old should have had a cellmate but the inmate scheduled to move in with him was mysteriously transferred on Friday just hours before he killed himself

His exact cause of death has not yet been released but New York City's chief medical examiner Dr Barbara Sampson said an autopsy was carried out on Sunday and a source told The New York Times that Sampson was 'confident' Epstein died by his own hands.

The former financier was found hanging in his prison cell shortly before 7am on Saturday morning and was rushed to nearby New York Presbyterian-Lower Manhattan hospital where he was pronounced dead.

A source revealed to DailyMail.com that Epstein actually told prison guards and fellow inmates that he believed someone had tried to kill him in the weeks before his death.

A source told the New York Post there was no video of the moment he died in his jail cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Cameras are said to film the doors to each cell which would show anyone who entered or exited, but they do not point inside.

The two prison guards who failed to follow procedure and check on prisoners every 30 minutes were working extreme overtime shifts to make up for staffing shortages around the time of Epstein's apparent suicide, a prison source said.

The prison official said that the Metropolitan Correctional Center's Special Housing Unit was staffed with one guard working a fifth-straight day of overtime and another who was working mandatory overtime.

The decision to remove Epstein, who was possibly the most high-profile inmate in the federal jail system, from suicide watch has both baffled former wardens and veterans of the federal prison system alike.

In a statement on Saturday, Attorney General William Barr said: 'Epstein's death raises serious questions that must be answered.'

He added: 'In addition to the FBI's investigation, I have consulted with the Inspector General who is opening an investigation into the circumstances of the death.'

Barr said Monday: 'Let me assure you that this case will continue on against anyone who was complicit with Epstein. Any co-conspirators should not rest easy.

'The victims deserve justice and they will get it.'

Lewis Kasman, a former close associate of the late mobster John Gotti Sr., said that if Epstein did kill himself inside his cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, pictured, he would have had to 'pay dearly' for help

A cell inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center is pictured. It is not thought Epstein was held in this style of cell and instead had been left alone in a bare cell with paper-like sheets, no light fixture and no bars

The 66-year-old was constantly requesting toilet paper while he had his own cell and 'lived like a pig in a sty', eating his meals off the floor, The Daily Beast reports.

It was reported Epstein initially was with the general population at MCC after his arrest in New Jersey in early July.

However he was transferred to the Special Housing Unit (SHU) when he was targeted for extortion, a source told The Daily Beast.

The publication reported that he could be heard asking others for their inmate numbers in what was believed to be him arranging to put money in their accounts.

While Epstein was in the SHU at the time of his reported first suicide attempt two weeks ago, he shared a cell with a former police officer who was under extra security.

The former cop, Nicholas Tartaglione, was charged with kidnapping and murdering four people in a 2016 drug deal gone wrong.

Tartaglione was put in the SHU after guards allegedly found a cell phone in his old quarters.

His lawyer claimed he saved Epstein's life two weeks ago by alerting guards.

The 66-year-old pedophile was awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking and was being held at the high-security complex without bail.

Epstein - who once boasted an array of high-profile friends including Prince Andrew and President Bill Clinton - was arrested on July 6, accused of arranging to have sex with underage girls at his residences in New York City and Florida between 2002 and 2005.

He had pleaded not guilty to the charges.