FRESH CLAIMS IN 'MI5 TORTURE' PROBE

Jamil Rahman said he was arrested in Bangladesh in December 2005 by the country's DGFI intelligence agency, under the direction of MI5 officers, and questioned several times over two years.

He said: "They stripped me naked and said that if I didn't say what they wanted me to say, they would rape me and my wife and burn her and other family members.

He told the BBC: "They wanted me to say I was al Qaida and the organiser of the 7/7 bombings.

"Even the Bengali intelligence officer told me that they didn't know anything about me, that they were only doing this for the British."

He added that he was pressured to give evidence against a Briton facing trial in Bangladesh.

A Home Office spokesman told the BBC: "We firmly reject any suggestion that we torture people or ask others to do so on our behalf. Mr Rahman has made a lot of unsubstantiated allegations. They have not been evidenced in any court of law."

It was revealed last month that lawyers for Mr Rahman wrote to Jacqui Smith claiming she colluded in assault, unlawful arrest, false imprisonment and breaches of human rights legislation.

Rahman, who settled in Bangladesh in 2005, married a woman he met while travelling in the country and returned to the UK last year.

His claims follow accusations by former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, who said he was tortured in Pakistan and Morocco with the knowledge of MI5.