TEHRAN The United States is under pressure for its inhumane treatment of Afghan prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay.

The global anti-terrorist coalition may have won the war in Afghanistan but it risked "losing the peace" over the United States' treatment of Afghan prisoners, AFP quoted EU Commissioner Chris Patten as saying on Wednesday.

"We seem to have won the military campaign in Afghanistan, ... but having won the campaign, I think it would be a huge error if the international coalition was to lose the peace," Patten said at a press conference in Tokyo, Japan.

He was responding to a question about his view of the treatment of suspected members of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda network being held at the Guantanamo Detention Facility in Cuba.

Washington has classified the 110 captives as illegal combatants, not prisoners of war, effectively denying them rights under the 1949 Geneva Convention on the laws of war, provoking severe international concerns over their treatment.

Ire about their treatment has also been raised by photographs showing a group of the prisoners kneeling, handcuffed and wearing dark goggles, earmuffs, mittens and bright orange jumpsuits.

Patten, the European Union's external affairs commissioner, said the EU had steadfastly supported the U.S.-led military campaign and "sympathized massively" with the U.S. after the September 11 terrorist attacks, blamed on Osama bin Laden.

EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana said Monday the fact that Washington has linked the prisoners to the September 11 terror attacks that killed more than 3,000 people should make no difference.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied Tuesday that prisoners transported from Afghanistan to the U.S. military foothold in Cuba were being ill-treated or subjected to torture.

He defended the classification of the detainees as "unlawful combatants," rather than as prisoners of war with certain rights under the Geneva Convention. However, the Human Rights Watch said the claim of Rumsfeld was not entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions. Human Rights Watch also criticized the reported use of chain-link cages to confine the detainees.

"The Secretary seems unaware of the requirements of international humanitarian law," said Jamie Fellner, director of Human Rights Watch's U.S. Program. "As a party to the Geneva Conventions, the United States is required to treat every detained combatant humanely, including unlawful combatants. The United States may not pick and choose among them to decide who is entitled to decent treatment."

This is not the first time detainees have been held at Guantanamo Bay. In 1994, the U.S. government responded to refugee flows from Haiti and then Cuba by creating a temporary holding facility at the base. While conditions there were stark and hardly hospitable, the detainees were held in permanent hard-walled shelters.

"The proposed cages are a scandal," said Fellner. "The United States should not be transporting detainees to Cuba until it can provide decent shelter."

The United States is a party to the Geneva Conventions, the laws governing the treatment of persons captured during armed conflict. Every captured fighter is entitled to humane treatment, understood at a minimum to include basic shelter, clothing, food and medical attention. In addition, no detainee -- even if suspected of war crimes such as the murder of civilians -- may be subjected to torture, corporal punishment, or humiliating or degrading treatment. If captured fighters are tried for crimes, the trials must satisfy certain basic fair trial guarantees.

Prisoners of war (POWs) are entitled to further protections, commensurate with respect for their military status as soldiers. Indeed, the Geneva Conventions provide that prisoners of war must be quartered in conditions that meet the same general standards as the quarters available to the captor's forces, e.g. the U.S. armed forces. In addition, POW's prosecuted for war crimes must be tried by the same court under the same rules as the detaining country's armed forces. In the current conflict, an Afghan POW could not be tried by the proposed military commissions, although they could be tried by an American court-martial.

Under the Geneva Conventions, captured fighters are considered prisoners of war (POWs) if they are members of an adversary state's armed forces or are part of an identifiable militia group that abides by the laws of war. Al-Qaeda members, who neither wear identifying insignia nor abide by the laws of war, probably would not quality. Taleban soldiers, as the armed forces of Afghanistan, may well be entitled to POW status. If there is doubt about a captured fighter's status as a POW, the Geneva Conventions require that he be treated as such until a competent tribunal determines otherwise.

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Tuesday the United States should treat suspects it has taken from Afghanistan to the U.S. base of Guantanamo on Cuba as prisoners of war.

"The German government has opened talks with the American side about the legal status and the treatment of the Guantanamo prisoners," Fischer said in a ministry statement.

He said, "In the fight against international terrorism, we also defend our basic values".

"We therefore are of the view, independently of their subsequent status, that they are to be handled as prisoners of war," he said, adding his voice to similar calls from elsewhere.