A US military officer walks past a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba.

    GENEVA, July 28 (Xinhua) -- A UN human rights panel on Friday urged the United States to close all secret detention centers and allow access to those detained in connection with the "anti-terrorism war."

    The United States "should immediately abolish all secret detention and secret detention facilities," said the UN Human Rights Committee, which supervises implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

    The committee said it had "credible and uncontested" information that the United States had detained people "secretly and in secret places for months and years."

    It urged the U.S. government to "grant prompt access by the International Committee of the Red Cross to any person detained in connection with an armed conflict."

    The committee also urged Washington to conduct prompt and independent investigations into all allegations of suspicious deaths and torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by its agents and other personnel in detention facilities in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq and other overseas locations.

    The committee reviewed periodic United States reports on how it had been implementing provisions of the covenant on July 17-18, and issued the conclusions of the review on Friday.

    In the 12-page conclusions and recommendations report, the committee listed a wide range of concerns relating to U.S. conduct in the "war on terror" as well as about the human rights situation in the United States.

    Concerns included the "potentially over-broad reach" of counter terrorism laws at home, interrogation techniques authorized by the U.S. army and safeguards for detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay military base.

    The committee also slammed Washington's statement that issues related to its conduct outside U.S. territory were largely " beyond the scope" of the treaty.

    "The United States should review its approach and interpret the covenant in good faith," the report said.

    It also raised concerns about the domestic human rights situation in the United States, including racial discrimination in education, racial profiling in federal and state law enforcement, and reports of police brutality.

    Washington immediately responded with a strong reaction to the committee's report on Friday, saying its conclusions were disappointing.

    "The committee loses perspective and credibility when it spends more time criticizing the United States than countries with no civil and political rights," said the U.S. mission in Geneva.

    The U.S. response mentioned the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, saying the committee did not do enough to criticize that country.

    "The recent committee conclusions and recommendations on North Korea was about half the length of that on the United States," it said.

    It added that the U.S. government "looks forward to speaking further about the committee's Conclusions and Recommendations after it has had a chance to read and study [the report] further." Enditem