The minister in charge of Iraqi prisons on Monday denied that a security force linked to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been holding detainees for months without access to lawyers or their families.

Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim's denial came in response to a Los Angeles Times report that some detainees at a Baghdad facility had been held for up to two years.

The facility, formally known as Camp Honour, is run by the Baghdad Brigade and the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism bureau, the paper said. It is located inside a sprawling defence ministry compound in central Baghdad's Green Zone.

"It is under the control of the ministry of justice. It is my responsibility, and I deny all these accusations -- they are all lies," Ibrahim, the minister responsible for Iraq's prisons, said.

"The prison is visited by the ministry of human rights and the International Red Cross. They know about it. There are 270 detainees and most of them were arrested over counter-terrorism offences and by Baghdad Operations Command."

He added: "Families can visit their sons or husbands, lawyers can visit them regularly. It's like any other prison run by the ministry of justice.

"It is not true that it follows Maliki's orders -- it is run by the ministry of justice."

Iraq has a fractured penal system in which the interior, defence and justice ministries all run their own detention centres. Convicts are held in justice ministry jails while detainees yet to face trial are held in any of the three.

The Los Angeles Times, citing unnamed Iraqi officials and diplomatic sources, said restricted access to the jail had prevented efforts by officials to investigate allegations of prisoner beatings and other abuses.

"It is inaccessible, and no one can go there," the paper quoted a senior diplomatic source as saying. "Lawyers cannot get there. Families cannot go there."

The paper also quoted a letter from Iraq's human rights ministry dated October 2010 calling for the jail to be closed, saying that such a move was necessary to reform the facility.

Iraq's prisons have in the past been a source for concern for human rights advocates.

In April 2010, New York-based Human Rights Watch said Iraqi men were raped, electrocuted and beaten at a "secret prison" in Baghdad, after interviewing 42 men transferred from a jail where they said the brutality was meted out.

It described the prisoners' accounts of abuse as "credible and consistent," and called for an independent and impartial investigation as well as for prosecutions at the highest level.

According to HRW, prison guards suspended blindfolded detainees upside down during interrogation, then kicked, whipped and beat them before placing a dirty plastic bag over suspects' heads to cut off their air supply.