Spain frequently allows torture of illegal immigrants and suspected ETA members by police to go unpunished and does not grant the appropriate compensation to victims, Amnesty International said in a report yesterday.

In a study of 450 court cases between 1980 and 2004, the human rights watchdog alleged governments had consistently denied torture was carried out by security forces, the chronic slowness of Spanish courts and frequent impunity for torturers.

A government spokeswoman had no comment.

While it said there was no systematic police torture, Amnesty identified a growing problem of racist treatment of illegal immigrants.

With its historic ties to Latin America and geographic proximity to North Africa, Spain was the main entry to the European Union for illegal immigrants last year.

Amnesty also warned Spain's practice of holding incommunicado suspected members of Basque separatist group ETA or of Al Qaida militants encouraged torture.

Despite the psychological damage inflicted by torture, Amnesty said Spain's courts continued to compensate victims under guidelines for traffic accidents.

In a third of cases, victims received less than 600 euros insufficient to cover the cost of medical treatment and therapy.

"It is worrying that even when torture or mistreatment have been proven at trial, many victims receive no compensation," said Esteban Beltran, Amnesty's director in Spain, in the report entitled Spain: Ending the Double Injustice.

"The length of trials for torture and mistreatment is excessive.

"The majority of victims in the cases analysed by Amnesty International had to wait more than seven years before receiving compensation," he added.

The rights group said victims were often not adequately compensated because their torturers could not be identified.

The report cited the case of a Brazilian immigrant raped in police custody in the Basque city of Bilbao. Although a court found in her favour, her rapists were never identified because none of the officers would cooperate.

Amnesty called for sanctions to punish officials who conceal torture and demanded that Spain sign up to a United Nations protocol on torture.

Torture of political dissidents was widespread under the 1939-1975 dictatorship of Francisco Franco and concerns over Spain's human rights record played a part in delaying its entry into the European Union until 1986.