Doctors pull out of Libyan hospitals

The group said that since August its medical teams have treated 115 people in Misrata who bore torture-related wounds, including cigarette burns, heavy bruising, bone fractures, tissue burns from electric shocks, and renal failure from beatings. Two detainees died after being interrogated, the group's director general said.

"Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable," MSF general director Christopher Stokes said in a statement. "Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions."

There was no immediate response from Libya's Western-backed administration.

Mr Stokes said that those subjected to torture include "a significant number of people with darker skin, but there is really a wide mix.

"Whatever the motives, it is unacceptable to do this to human beings."

The British government, which deployed special forces in Libya in support of insurgents and played a key role in the Nato-led air campaign that enabled them to overthrow the former government, urged Libya's National Transitional Council to "live up to the high standards they have set themselves."