GENEVA, Jan 18 (AFP) -- A report by delegates from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), currently visiting prisoners from Afghanistan held at a US base in Cuba, will remain confidential, an ICRC spokesman said on Friday [18 January]. Darcy Christen also said that among the prisoners transferred to the US navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were three British citizens and possibly some French speakers. However, the Geneva-based ICRC did not know the number nor the nationality, he said following a comment on Thursday that there could have been French nationals among them. ICRC envoys are discussing with US officials whether to release the number of detainees and their nationalities, said Christen. The findings from the visit, which got under way on Friday and is expected to last at least one week, will be presented directly to US authorities, Christen told reporters. "Confidentiality will be respected in this case. As long as this confidentiality will allow us to get results in the humanitarian sphere we will keep to it," he said, adding it would be the first of a series of visits. The four-member team, which includes a doctor, will inspect conditions and treatment of the increasing number of Taliban and al-Qa'ida prisoners arriving at the base from Afghanistan. The ICRC plans follow up on prisoners if they are transferred again later, and try to gain access to new arrivals in coming days. "It is important to be able to repeat these visits," he said. The number of detainees being held at the isolated US military outpost on Cuba's southwestern coast rose on Thursday to 110 after the arrival of another 30 prisoners from Afghanistan. The US has caused controversy by stating the detainees are "unlawful combatants" and have no rights under the Geneva Convention. The ICRC considers, however, that they are prisoners of war protected by the Third Geneva Convention of 1949. Christen said "detainees from the battle field" did not exist as a category under humanitarian law, adding that in an international armed conflict anyone captured on the battlefield was presumed a prisoner of war. "If a doubt exists as to the status of a person, this doubt must be decided by a tribunal acting on the basis of judicial guarantees," he added. Asked about special courts to be set up by the Bush administration to try the al-Qaeda detainees, Christen pointed out the courts were not yet operating and their procedures were still unknown. "For us there cannot be special courts. We want to avoid expeditious justice," he said.