WASHINGTON - A confidential report by the International Committee of the Red Cross says that US personnel, including medical officers, engaged in torture. The report is based on interviews conducted by the ICRC with so-called high-value detainees who were held and interrogated in secret overseas detention centres. The ICRC was given access to the detainees in 2006, and the confidential report - portions of which had been leaked in recent weeks - was dated Feb 14, 2007. According to the report, medical officers sitting in on interrogations violated medical ethics and, in some instances, essentially participated in torture. In some cases, health officers supervised or assisted as suspected Al-Qaeda operatives were subjected to waterboarding, food deprivation and exposure to extreme temperatures. The Red Cross found that detainees were held for up to four years in secret prisons, were frequently made to stand for several days in positions evidently intended to cause pain, and were threatened with electric shocks, infection with HIV, sodomy of the detainee and ... being brought close to death. CIA officials have previously confirmed that three detainees were subjected to waterboarding, the Post noted, but CIA officials had no immediate comment on the ICRC report. One prisoner reported being shackled in this manner for two to three months, seven days of prolonged stress standing followed by two days of being able to sit or lie down. In addition to the coercive methods - which the ICRC said amounted to torture and a violation of US and international treaty obligations - the report said detainees were routinely threatened with further violence against themselves and their families. An ICRC spokesman confirmed the authenticity of the document and said the organisation deplores that what was to be a confidential report has been made public. The ICRC report was posted by Mark Danner, an author and professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and Bard College in New York. AFP adds: A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the report. In the interviews, detainees told the ICRC that medical workers took part in torture and fine-tuned the harshness of treatment. One medical official told detainee Encep Hambali Nuraman: I look after your body only because we need you for information, the report said. It said the health personnels alleged participation constituted a gross breach of medical ethics and, in some cases, amounted to participation in torture and/or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Their main role was to serve the interrogation process, and not the patient, the Red Cross noted. In so doing, the health personnel have condoned, and participated in ill-treatment. At least five copies of the report had been shared with the CIA and top White House officials in 2007, but were barred from public release by ICRC guidelines intended to preserve the organizations neutrality. We deplore that a confidential report was made public, ICRC spokesman Bernard Barrett said. It was only intended to be shared with senior officials in the US government. The report said beyond the ill-treatment of the 14 prisoners interviewed, their detention amounted to arbitrary deprivation of liberty and enforced disappearance, in contravention of international law.