An inquiry set up by the British government last year to look into whether its security services knew about the torture of terrorism suspects overseas will be expanded to include allegations about secret British dealings with Qaddafi’s Libya.

Documents found in the abandoned Tripoli office of Qaddafi’s intelligence chief indicate US and British spy agencies helped Qaddafi persecute Libyan dissidents, Human Rights Watch said on Saturday.

The British inquiry, headed by retired appeals court judge Peter Gibson, said it would consider the allegations of British involvement in the transfer of terrorism suspects to Libya as part of its work.

“We will be seeking more information from (the) government and its agencies as soon as possible,” it said in a statement.

Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to respond to allegations of potential British complicity in torture in Libya in a statement to parliament at 1430 GMT on Monday.

The documents were uncovered by the Human Rights Watch in the abandoned offices of Libya’s former spy chief and foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who fled to London during the war. He left soon afterwards and was reported to have gone to Qatar.

The current military commander for Tripoli of Libya’s provisional government, Abdel Hakim Belhadj, was among those captured and sent to Libya by the CIA, the rights group said.

Belhadj has said that he was tortured by CIA agents before being transferred to Libya, where he says he was then tortured at Tripoli’s notorious Abu Salim prison.

The Guardian newspaper reported on Monday that a secret CIA document found in Tripoli showed the British and Libyans worked together to arrange for a terrorism suspect, Abu Munthir, to be moved from Hong Kong to Tripoli, with his wife and children, in 2004 despite the risk they would be tortured.

Through his spokesman, Cameron had earlier nudged the inquiry to expand its investigations to include the Libya allegations, saying it was “well placed” to look into them. It has so far been focused on Guantanamo Bay detainees.

He said the papers found in Tripoli related to Britain’s previous Labour government, in power for 13 years before it lost an election last year. “Current ministers wouldn’t have access to those papers,” he said.

Although launched more than a year ago, the Gibson inquiry has not yet formally launched hearings. Criminal cases involving the allegations must be completed before it does so.

Jack Straw, Labour’s foreign secretary for the period covered by some of the Libya documents, welcomed the inquiry’s decision to look into the allegations.

The Labour government long denied having anything to with rendition — the illegal movement of people to third countries without charge — or any knowledge of torture, but said for the first time in 2008 that the United States had used British territory to transfer terrorism suspects.