British intelligence officials said yesterday that there was no evidence to support George Bush’s claim that the use of waterboarding had helped to foil terrorist plots.

David Davis, the Conservative former shadow home secretary, said: “For [Bush] to demonstrate the use of torture saved British lives he has to demonstrate you can’t get information any other way.” He added: “We know from Iraq that whenever brains rather than brutality was involved, you get better results.” Davis pointed to claims made by one detainee, Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, after he was tortured that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida and that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, both of which have proved not to be true.

Bush also mentioned Abu Zubaydah, waterboarded after his capture in Pakistan in 2002. Zubaydah told his interrogators that al-Qaida had links with Saddam Hussein and that there was a plot to attack Washington with a “dirty bomb”. Both claims are now recognised by the CIA to be false.