The international Red Cross has admitted that it took photos of September 11 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that have circulated on the internet.

But a spokesman from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that all of the photos had been given to the detainee's family before they started appearing on the internet.

The photos show a strikingly different Mohammed from an image distributed after his detention in 2003. The Guantanamo "war on terror" prison camp detainee looks calm, with a half-smile and with a considerable beard.

The new pictures were published early September on Islamist internet websites and quickly circulated.

The spokesman said that it is a "regular practice" of ICRC officials to take photos during visits to detention centres. The ICRC is the only organisation that can visit prisoners at Guantanamo.

"These photos are taken to be transmitted to family members, in the same spirit as the Red Cross messages" from prisoners, she explained.

"The ICRC's visits give those in capitivity the occasion to re-establish and maintain their contact with their families" in conformity with the mandate accorded to the organisation by the Geneva Conventions. "We have no comment to make on what happened to the photos after they were given to families," she added.On the photos, Mohammed wore the Irham, white robes that cover the hair and top of the body.

In the images of Mohammed released by US authorities after his arrest, he was wearing a body suit, badly shaven and looking haggard.

Mohammed, the self-described planner of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, was captured in Pakistan in March 2003. He was charged with war crimes and murder by a US military commission last year and faces the death penalty if convicted.

US President Barack Obama has ordered the closure of the Guantanamo detention centre but the fate of many detainees remains uncertain.