Aghan prisoners hanged by their wrists, beaten with cables: UN

He said there has been no suspension of transfers to the massive detention center next to Bagram Air Field outside of Kabul. That facility has been particularly contentious because the U.S. has held back from transferring all the detainees it holds there to Afghan custody.

But as international troops draw down in Afghanistan, there will be fewer people to monitor the Afghan detention centers. Allen said in his letter that the NATO military alliance planned to focus on monitoring only a subset of Afghan facilities in the future.

And even the manner in which the U.N. report was compiled and released shows the waning influence of Western allies over the Afghan government. Both last year and again on Sunday, the report was released without a news conference. Instead, it was quietly posted on the U.N. website in what appeared to be an effort to avoid publicly antagonizing the Afghan government that it criticizes in the report.

"I think it's being dealt with in the appropriate way. Maybe we don't need to do it publicly,'' Gagnon said, noting that there have been plenty of discussions with the Afghan government about how to improve the prison system.

Asked what actual improvements have been made to prisoner conditions since 2011, Gagnon was at a loss to give an example. But, she stressed: "There has been quite a lot of effort.''

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