How the Daily Mirror is treating the story's latest twist
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The Royal Military Police have interviewed a soldier who has made
fresh allegations that British troops have been abusing Iraqi prisoners.
The soldier is the third linked with the Queen's Lancashire Regiment to have made allegations to the Mirror.
Editor Piers Morgan said the soldier's dossier of claims included "appalling beatings" by a small "rogue element".
Mr Morgan said a handful of soldiers, including corporals and sergeants, were thought to be to blame.
In an interview with the BBC, he said the soldier had detailed four separate incidents of beatings, and could name the people he believed were responsible.
'Inexcusable abuse'
The Ministry of Defence confirmed the man had approached military police to discuss the claims.
BBC defence correspondent Paul Adams said the soldier may be talking about the death of a man arrested by troops from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment and, it is alleged, beaten to death.
That was last September but our correspondent said the fall-out and the photographs could have far-reaching implications.
The fresh allegations come after Tony Blair branded any abuses "inexcusable".
And former Tory chancellor Ken Clarke said allegations that Iraqi prisoners have been abused by coalition troops have caused a "desperate political problem".
Mr Morgan has told BBC News the new witness, "Soldier C", was not involved in the photographed incident and cannot verify the pictures.
It is understood he is a Territorial Army reservist attached to the Queen's Lancashire Regiment in Iraq.
And he has produced a "very disturbing dossier" detailing abuses on at least four separate occasions by "a rogue element of that regiment against Iraqi POW detainees", says Mr Morgan.
It includes claims of "appalling beatings". In one, a corporal placed a sandbag over a suspect's face and poked his fingers in the victim's eyes until he screamed with pain, "Soldier C" told the Mirror.
"I've seen the state of their faces when they took the sandbags off. Their noses were bent - they looked like haggises," he claimed.
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If there are some bad hats - and it sounds as though there may have been - they must be dealt with
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The editor says the abuse claims centre on five or six soldiers whom the newspaper's new source believes "created a culture of fear and intimidation towards PoWs which went way beyond any guidelines".
Mr Clarke said photographs of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners have handed a propaganda coup to al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.
"And unfortunately quite wrongly, Muslims will tend to react by believing this confirms every fantasy they have about Western attitudes towards the Middle East and the Muslim world and we now face a desperate political problem of how we reverse that."
Tory Shadow Defence Secretary Nicholas Soames told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: "This is extremely serious for the reputation of the Army. If there are some bad hats - and it sounds as though there may have been - they must be dealt
with."
Military experts have questioned the authenticity of the pictures of alleged abuse published in the Mirror over the weekend.
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Captured soldiers will be treated as a concubine
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The MoD says there have been no arrests relating to the pictures.
Mr Morgan refused to say whether he would resign if the photos were proved fake, saying: "I am not queasy or worried about them."
The newspaper has handed 20 photos to the military police officers who are investigating the claims.
Mr Morgan is already set to be questioned by MPs on the Commons defence select committee.
Tony Blair has said it would be "extremely serious" if the photos prove to be fake.