The MP George Galloway has compared Israel to Nazi doctor Josef Mengele who experimented on prisoners and with body parts of concentration camp victims.

In an article in the Scottish Daily Record entitled “Dark Echoes of the Holocaust”, the outspoken Respect MP criticised the lack of press attention given to Israel’s admission of taking unauthorised organs from both Israelis and Palestinians.

He said Israel was “playing mini-Mengele on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.”

Mengele was the so-called ‘Angel of Death’ at Auschwitz, who conducted gruesome experiments on inmates, particularly on twins, and ordered the deaths of prisoners with medical problems.

Mr Galloway also boosted the claims of Swedish journalist Daniel Bostrom, who wrote in the newspaper Aftonbladet that Israelis were kidnapping and murdering Palestinian children for their organs.

It was beyond belief that a country calling itself the ‘Jewish State’ could ever do such a thing. George Galloway

Mr Galloway said he owed Mr Bostrom an apology for not believing the report.

He said: “When the story first broke, on Swedish TV, I frankly did not believe it. Implacable critic of Israel as I am, it was beyond belief that a country calling itself the ‘Jewish State’ could ever do such a thing.

“I met the correspondent responsible for the story months ago and rigorously questioned him about it. I was not satisfied, and didn't use the information.

“The man was offended and I owe him an apology”.

Yehuda Hiss, the former head of Israel's forensic institute Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv has admitted that pathologists once harvested organs from both dead Palestinians and dead Israelis without the consent of their families.

He spoke about this more than a decade ago but his confirmation has recently resurfaced at the instigation of an American academic who remembered the outcry at the practice.

The Israeli health ministry has confirmed such a practice did take place but that it was swiftly ended in the 1990s.