WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is taking measures to protect himself as he faces criticism for posting hundreds of thousands of secret United States military documents on the Iraq war onto his website.

The leaked documents span a five-year period and detail the abuse of civilians by Iraqi security forces.

Mr Assange has told Israel's Channel Two television he has stepped up security following the release of the documents.

The station reported that Mr Assange was accompanied by bodyguards during the interview.

US and British defence officials have both condemned the release of the documents, saying they could put at risk the lives of soldiers.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith has told Channel Nine he agrees the release of the documents is a worry.

"It still does potentially give people an insight into the way in which we do operations and it does potentially put people at risk who have assisted us in the past," he said.

"We will go through that painstaking course and treat it in exactly the same way that we have treated the earlier unauthorised disclosure of classified military information."

Mr Smith says a Government task force has been looking at a previous release of documents about the Afghanistan war.

He says so far those leaks have not put Australian troops at risk.

Overnight, the British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg called for an investigation into the allegations of prisoners being abused by Iraqi police and soldiers.

"I think anything that suggests that basic rules of war and conflict and of engagement have been broken or that torture has in any way been condoned are extremely serious and need to be looked at," he said.

Iraq Body Count, an independent group which estimates the number of Iraqis who have died since the invasion in 2003, says that on the basis of the new leaks the death toll has risen by about 15,000.

That brings the overall number to more than 120,000.

John Sloboda, the co-founder of the group, says every single Iraqi death was a tragedy for the families concerned and must be investigated.

"Any family who has lost a loved one in a war will want the details of that particular death recognised and recorded as we would expect for anybody from this country who had died," he said.

"The Iraqi people have not been well served yet in terms of having that full and detailed roll of the dead.

"These logs are the largest single addition to that work that have ever been put in the public domain."

The files are mainly field reports from soldiers on the ground.

They contain graphic accounts of torture, civilian killings and details of Iran's hand in the Iraq war.

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has issued a statement angrily denouncing allegations that he was tied to Shia death squads that killed Sunnis during the sectarian conflict of 2006 to 2007.

While the leaks have drawn considerable attention, the founder of WikiLeaks also continues to draw the media spotlight.

Mr Assange walked out of an interview on CNN after he was questioned about a criminal investigation against him in Sweden.

"I am going to walk if you are going to contaminate us reviewing the deaths of 104,000 with attacks against my person," he said before walking out.