CANBERRA - AUSTRALIA is considering a US request to re-settle inmates from the Guantanamo Bay military prison camp, but would apply strict security screening before accepting an unspecified number.

Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Friday the government had been approached along with Britain to accept inmates to help US president-elect Barack Obama meet a promise to close the camp in a US enclave on Cuba.

'For anyone to be accepted they would have to meet Australia's strict legal requirement and go through normal rigorous assessment processes,' Mr Gillard said in a statement.

About 255 men are still held at the Guantanamo naval base, including 60 the United States has cleared for release but cannot repatriate for fear they will be tortured or persecuted in their home countries.

The prison has come to symbolise aggressive interrogation practices that opened the United States up to allegations of torture.

The US State Department last week asked around 100 countries for help clearing the camp of detainees, the Australian newspaper reported.

Australia, a close US ally, was an original member of the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq and helped oust the Taleban from control of Afghanistan following the Sept 11, 2001 airliner attacks in the United States.

An Australian man, former kangaroo skinner David Hicks, was the first Guantanamo inmate convicted of supporting terrorism, and was returned home from the prison in May 2007 after pleading guilty. Strict Australian police controls on Hicks were recently dropped.

Another Australian, Mamdouh Habib, was released from Guantanamo without charge in 2005.

Australian media said the government would accept no 'wholesale intake' from Guantanamo and conservative opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should immediately rule out support for the plan. Rudd is currently on Christmas holiday.

'What (Rudd) has agreed to, with the Americans, is to accept Guantanamo Bay inmates for resettlement in Australia, in our community, as migrants, and that is completely and utterly unacceptable to the Australian people,' Mr Turnbull told local radio. -- REUTERS