The torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners, captured on camera in a US run Baghdad prison, was controlled and devised by US agencies including the CIA, a lawyer claimed today.

Guy Womack, who represents a military policeman under investigation, said the photographs of the Iraq prisoners that have inspired widespread revulsion “were obviously staged” in order to manipulate the prisoners into co-operating with intelligence officials.

“They were part of the psychological manipulation of the prisoners being interrogated,” said Womack, lawyer for Charles Graner, a corrections officer who was activated to the military in March 2003 and served at Abu Ghraib.

“It was being controlled and devised by the military intelligence community and other governmental agencies, including the CIA,” Womack said.

The soldiers, he said, were simply “following orders”.

President George Bush has urged his Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to quickly get to the bottom of the Abu Ghraib scandal and to ensure that US soldiers found guilty of misbehaviour are appropriately punished.

The president said he had been ”shaken” by the reports of prisoner abuse “because I know that this doesn’t reflect the values of our country”.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John Warner summoned US army officials to face his panel today and answer questions about the probe.

In Geneva, the UN’s top human rights official, Bertrand Ramcharan, added his voice to the chorus of those condemning the abuses.

“Such incidents should be investigated and those responsible brought to justice swiftly,” he said.

The US military did a “top-level review” last autumn of how its detention centres in Iraq were run, months before commanders first were told about the sexual humiliation and abuse of Iraqis that has created an international uproar, a Defence Department official said.

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