The Committee of the International Red Cross (ICRC) has asked Libyan authorities to allow their teams to visit the son of slain leader Moamer Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam, in prison, dpa reported.
The ICRC request came a few hours after Saif al-Islam appeared in a televised interview released by fighters from the town of Zintan, where Gaddafi was being detained. He assured that he was being well treated and that he was among "brothers."
"We hope that we will have access to Mr Gaddafi very soon," Yves Daccord, ICRC director general told a news briefing in Geneva.
"He is someone who needs to be protected," Daccord said. He added that the ICRC was requesting access to all detainees in Libya.
During the interview, Saif al-Islam raised the controversial issue about his hand injury, which he said was caused during a NATO airstrike.
Saif al-Islam, 39, was captured Saturday in southern Libya, near the border with Niger. Shortly after his capture, footage showed him with the fingers on his right hand bandaged.
"After we left Bani Walid, we were hit by the NATO crusaders. Twenty-six of our guys were martyred. The rest were all wounded," he said.
"I was hit too. It happened near Wadi Zamzam about a month ago," he added.
But many in Libya doubted his claim and said Gaddafi's fingers were cut shortly after he was captured by Libyan fighters on Saturday.
"I saw fresh blood on his bandages ... an injury that happened a month ago would not be bleeding until now," a Libyan journalist told the Doha-based al Jazeera television.
In a programme aired on Libya TV, one of the fighters who captured Saif al-Islam said that he personally witnessed his colleague "cut off his fingers," allegedly because Saif al-Islam pointed his finger at them in a threatening manner.
On Sunday, former intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, who has been intelligence chief until Gaddafi's final days, was arrested in his sister's house near the south-western city of Sabha.
Earlier this year, the International Criminal Court indicted al-Senussi, along with Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam, for crimes against humanity after the uprising against Gaddafi began in February.
But Libyan rulers have declared that they want both men to stand trial in Libya.