A civilian investigation is being launched into alleged mistreatment of prisoners in Afghanistan involving the Canadian military, CBC News has learned.

The Military Police Complaints Commission said Friday it will conduct a "public interest investigation" into the way Canadian soldiers handle prisoners in the Afghan mission.

The allegations stem from military records detailing injuries in prisoners in Canadian custody.

The investigation will be private, but the commission may launch a public inquiry if there are indications of wrongdoing, said Peter Tinsley, who heads the civilian-run body.

"There is no suggestion at this point … that the military police actually inflicted any injury or damage to these prisoners, [but] simply that they failed or were negligent in safeguarding their interests," Tinsley told CBC News on Friday.

The military has already launched its own investigation into the allegations made by Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, based on military documents he requested under the Access to Information Act.

Attaran requested the complaints commission probe how at least one — and as many as three Afghan prisoners — was brought to military police by a single interrogator in one day in April 2006 with injuries to their faces, heads and upper bodies.

"Unfortunately, a lesson of our contemporary history is that whoever is being investigated shouldn't be doing the investigating," Attaran told CBC News. "The investigator should be out of the house."

Standing order on handling prisoners

A group of Canadian soldiers captured the Afghans near a small town about 50 kilometres west of Kandahar. The men were taken to the medical centre on the Kandahar base.

'There is no suggestion at this point … that the military police actually inflicted any injury or damage to these prisoners, [but] simply that they failed or were negligent in safeguarding their interests.'—Peter Tinsley, Military Police Complaints Commissioner 

A military report said the man with the most serious injuries — bruises and cuts to his arm, back and chest — was injured when his hands were tied behind his back.

The military initially said "appropriate force" was used against the man, who it alleged was a bomb-maker.

One of the detainees was described in military reports as "non-compliant," while a second was described as "extremely belligerent," taking four men to subdue him.

"I believe that the Canadian public wants to be assured in some publicly credible fashion that this is not another Somalia," Tinsley said.

The torture and murder of Shidane Arone, a 16-year-old Somalian boy, by members of the Canadian Airborne regiment during the United Nations mission in Somalia in 1993 led to the disbandment of the elite regiment and the creation of the complaints commission.

The Canadian Forces has more than 2,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

One of the standing orders for Canadians on the mission details how prisoners are to be handled. Troops likely to take prisoners must carry a card with them that reminds soldiers to handle prisoners "firmly, but humanely," and warns that abuse of a prisoner is a criminal offence.