Scotland Yard’s war crimes unit is assessing a request to investigate allegations that United Arab Emirates security officials and politicians authorised the torture of three Qatari citizens in the UAE.

The legal application, involving British police in a Gulf human rights dispute through the UK’s powers of universal jurisdiction over serious crimes, is likely to prove diplomatically embarrassing for the government.

The three male complainants, all professional Qataris, have travelled to London this week. They were detained on arrival in the UAE in 2013 and 2014. One was held for more than two years; all were eventually freed in early 2015.

The men allege they were variously beaten, subjected to electric shocks, hung upside down, drugged, kept in solitary confinement and threatened with death. One was accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Two of the Qataris say they were forced to record fictitious confessions to charges of sedition and defamation in return for promises of early release. The promises, it is claimed, were subsequently broken and the Qataris imprisoned.

Their confessions were broadcast on TV in Abu Dhabi in June after diplomatic relations between Qatar and other Gulf states deteriorated. The broadcasts persuaded the men, whose plight was highlighted at the time by Amnesty International, to seek justice in the UK.

Scotland Yard has confirmed that its war crimes unit, SO15, has begun a preliminary assessment of their evidence. Police have been given a list of up to 10 names of UAE officials, including at least one politician of cabinet rank. If an arrest warrant is eventually issued, the officials could be detained if they travel to the UK.

There have been numerous complaints by Britons and foreign nationals of torture and mistreatment in the UAE. The United Nations and human rights organisations have criticised the country’s human rights records on detainees.

Last year the former Leeds United managing director David Haigh claimed he was repeatedly tortured and abused while in prison accused of fraud in Dubai. Haigh, released after 23 months of detention, said he experienced five “serious episodes” of physical abuse, and witnessed the torture of other prisoners.

The three Qataris who have submitted their complaints to the Metropolitan police are Dr Mahmoud Abdul Rahman Al Jaidah, Hamad Ali Muhammad Ali Al Hammadi and Yousef Abdul Samad Al Mullah. They have not yet been formally interviewed.

Al Jaidah is director of medical services at Qatar Petroleum, Al Hammadi is personal assistant to the head of Qatar’s state security service and Al Mullah works for the Qatari ministry of the interior in the general directorate of passports.

Al Jaidah was arrested when he arrived at Dubai airport in February 2013. He says that he asked to speak to a lawyer and his country’s embassy but was blindfolded and driven to a detention centre.

Al Hammadi and Al Mullah were stopped when they arrived by car at the UAE border with Saudi Arabia in June 2014. They were also blindfolded and handcuffed.

“I wasn’t allowed to sleep for three days,” Al Jaidah told the Guardian. “They kept questioning me. They beat me on the legs and they punched me in the stomach. I was kept in solitary confinement for eight and a half months.”

He said he was given water laced with drugs that made him talk. He was also, he alleged, hung upside down and subjected to electric shocks.

Al Hammadi said that the UAE officials had forcibly taken a large quantity of blood from him.

“I was kept in solitary confinement in a cell that was two metres by three metres,” he said. “There was no ventilation, no windows and lights were on 24 hours a day.” He suffers from kidney disease but was denied sufficient water for his health, he said.

He added: “They hung me upside down. They beat me with a stick and gave me electric shocks. They didn’t allow me to pray. They threatened to pull out my nails and to kill me. They kept me in handcuffs that were too tight.”

Al Mullah said he was held for nine months but never charged with any offence. He said: “I did not know what was going to happen. I was kept in solitary confinement without any natural light. I was not beaten or tortured but was humiliated and could not sleep.” His marriage later broke down as a result of his treatment, he said.

A dossier of evidence from the Qataris and legal submissions have been presented to Scotland Yard by Rodney Dixon QC of Temple Garden Chambers, an expert in international and human rights law.

He said: “We have highlighted in our file that there’s a history of widespread, systematic torture in the UAE. The police have said they will commence a scoping exercise in accordance with joint police [and] Crown Prosecution Service guidelines.”

A spokesperson for Scotland Yard said: “We can confirm that we have received a referral [on 12 September] relating to an allegation of torture in the United Arab Emirates between 2013 and 2015. The referral is being assessed by officers from the Met police war crimes team.”

Universal jurisdiction, originally formulated under the Geneva conventions on the laws of war, enables certain serious crimes – piracy, war crimes, genocide, torture, crimes against humanity and hostage taking – to be tried in UK domestic courts even if the alleged crime was committed abroad and against non-British nationals.

The legal principle, enacted through section 134 of the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, was used when the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998.

In 2009, a British judge granted an arrest warrant against Tzipi Livni, who had been Israel’s foreign minister during the country’s assault on Gaza.

After the Livni case, the law was changed so that before any arrests can be made the police must first be satisfied with the evidence, the director of public prosecutions must authorise the procedure and a magistrate at Westminster magistrates court must grant an arrest warrant.

The UAE embassy did not immediately reply to request for comment.