Bermuda was one of the prototypes for the spartan prison camp in Cuba which is now holding suspected terrorists, according to a UK newspaper report.

The respected The Independent newspaper quoted experts as saying that Camp X-Ray, the bleak stockade at Guantanamo Bay in used to hold al Qaeda's "illegal combatants", owes its origins to the Boer War in South Africa a 100 years ago.

During The Boer War of 1899 to 1902 Britain decided camps could be used to hold not only uniformed prisoners of war but also a less-defined array of "supporters", ranging from guerrillas to children of the enemy Dutch Afrikaners.

Faced with increasing losses at the hands of Boer commandos, Lord Kitchener, the British commander, hit on a new policy - scorched earth and imprisonment.

In an attempt to dismantle the network set up by the Dutch Afrikaners, hundreds of farms owned by Boers and Africans were razed and more than 120,000 civilians herded into prison camps.

Their cramped and unhygienic conditions led to the death of 28,000 white Afrikaners and more than 20,000 blacks.

However at the Bermuda camp on Long Island in the Great Sound only 38 prisoners died out of 4,600 held there.

Critics of Camp X-Ray argue that its location in Cuba means it is not subject to American law, and the lack of PoW status for its inmates means they are not governed by the Geneva Convention, under which interrogation is banned beyond name, rank and number.

Bram Oppenheim, emeritus reader in social psychology at the London School of Economics, said: "What we have in Guantanamo are not prisoners of war but 'illegal combatants'.

"It could be argued that the Americans are playing the system, just as the British did before them."

The British made a point of sending captured Boer soldiers as far from South Africa as possible. Destinations included Ceylon and the island of St Helena as well as Bermuda.

Dr Oppenheim added: "The key is communication. A human being can survive most things if he or she has company and a group. If you take that away, hold a person incommunicado, they will eventually give the captor what he wants."