Sixteen-year-old Omar Khadr has become the first Canadian known to be held at the U.S. military compound for Taliban and al-Qaeda suspects in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, a source told The Globe and Mail.

The teenager, who was born in Canada and went to school in Toronto and Ottawa, is said to have thrown the grenade that killed a U.S. medic in Afghanistan.

The United States had held Mr. Khadr at Bagram air base in Afghanistan for months, but he is now imprisoned at the U.S. Navy base on the Caribbean Island, according to the source.

"He is there," the source said Wednesday.

U.S. officials have said nothing officially about Mr. Khadr, but it is understood that he had been in U.S. custody in Afghanistan since July, where he was recuperating from bullet wounds suffered during a battle with U.S. soldiers.

More than 600 prisoners are believed to be in Guantanamo and they are being prodded for information about what they may know about al-Qaeda. Those held in the camp are behind fences topped off by barbed wire. Many stay in tiny cells measuring about two metres by two metres. They are shackled when they are allowed to walk.

"It's not an appropriate place," Amnesty International's John Tackaberry said.

"Anyone concerned about the treatment of juveniles will question the sending of a person to this type of facility," he said. "Because of his age, he has to be separated from the larger community. There are UN standards in terms of treatment of juveniles."

This week, the first prisoners released from Guantanamo gave accounts of their ordeals. "They kept us in cages like animals," a 35-year-old named Jan Mohammed told The Associated Press in Kabul. "We were only allowed out twice per week for half an hour."

The prisoners said they were free to practise Islam.

The Foreign Affairs Department said it has received no official word from the United States about Mr. Khadr's case. Without formally stating that he is being held, the United States has promised to notify Ottawa if any Canadians are sent to Guantanamo.

Ottawa has sought consular access to the teenager, but has been denied.

Although he is said to have killed a medic, he is not known to have been charged with any crime. The United States has designated prisoners held at Guantanamo enemy combatants, which means they can be detained without charge or consular access until hostilities end, Washington says.

Captives at Guantanamo do not enjoy the protections typically given to prisoners of war, which some interpret to mean that captives have to give only their name, rank, serial number and date of birth.

Mr. Khadr surfaced in Afghanistan during the summer in a deadly battle in Khost, fought after U.S. soldiers raided an al-Qaeda compound and called in an air strike.

Soldiers then went into the compound thinking everyone inside was dead, sources said. That was when Mr. Khadr, then 15, is said to have launched the grenade that killed 28-year-old Sergeant 1st Class Christopher James Speer. The Americans returned fire, hitting Mr. Khadr twice in the chest, the sources said.

He was treated in hospital in Afghanistan. U.S. officials have said he is divulging useful information to interrogators. Of particular interest to them is what Mr. Khadr may have to say about his father, who is believed to have close al-Qaeda links.

Ahmed Said Khadr was born in Egypt but immigrated to Canada in the 1970s. He worked as an engineer in Ottawa, but became an Islamic charity worker, taking his wife and six children to Central Asia and back to Canada on many occasions.

In 1996, he was detained by Pakistani authorities on suspicion of financing a deadly bombing attack against the Egyptian embassy, but he was let go. For the last year, he has been missing.