London  - Lawyers acting for a former inmate of the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay Tuesday announced legal action for compensation against the British government for its alleged role in his so-called extraordinary rendition.

Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni, a Pakistani citizen, said he was taken on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) flight to Egypt which refuelled on the British Indian Ocean island territory of Diego Garcia.

Madni, 31, said he was taken from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in January 2002 and flown to Cairo, where he was tortured. His torturers used electric shocks over a three-month period, leaving him "severely disabled," he alleges.

"I was shackled and put in a box," Madni told the BBC Tuesday, also recalling the debilitating effects of having electric shocks administered to his knee.

He was later flown to the US camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where he was held for six years before being freed.

The US claimed that he was a member of the al-Qaeda network, but no charges were brought and he was released last year.

His lawyers are demanding to know the full details of Britain's role in the rendition process. They claim that it is "inconceivable" that the British government did not approve the use of Diego Garcia for rendition flights.

"Rendition is kidnap, pure and simple, and there is a very serious principle at stake here. The British government cannot admit its involvement in a crime, then refuse to identify the victims and affirmatively block others from trying to reunite them with their legal rights," said Clive Stafford Smith from the legal charity Reprieve.

Madni suffered serious physical and psychological injuries as a result of his rendition to torture, but had not even received as much as an apology from his abusers, said the lawyer.

"He is happy finally to be free but wants to launch this action to ensure that no-one is forced to suffer in this way in future," he added.

The Foreign Office said the case was "concerning" but reiterated that the British government was "not complicit in torture" regarding Guantanamo Bay detainees.

In February last year, Foreign Secretary David Miliband admitted that two US rendition flights transporting terrorist suspects had landed on British soil.

Miliband said the two flights to Diego Garcia had come to light as a result of investigations in the US, having previously been overlooked owing to an "administrative error." (dpa)