Manfred Nowak, an Austrian civil rights lawyer and the U.N.’s special rapporteur on torture, has confirmed that he was looking into a complaint filed on Manning’s behalf by at least one of his supporters.

Various and sometimes conflicting reports have surfaced this past week as to Manning’s condition as he sits in a military prison in Quantico, Virginia awaiting a court martial. The Pentagon has denied he is being treated any differently than any other prisoner in the military lockup.

The controversy around Manning’s treatement flared last week when lawyer and Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald described his conditions as “torturous” and inhumane.  David Coombs, Manning’s own lawyer and a former U.S. Army Major, confirmed that Manning is being held in solitary confinement, completely isolated 23 hours a day, barred from napping during the day, and is allowed to read only one periodical or book at a time.  Manning's exercise is also severely restricted as his bedding material, according to Coombs.

Coombs has also confirmed that a formal request he made to alleviate the harsh terms of Manning’s pretrial imprisonment was flatly turned down by U.S. military officials.

Solitary confinement is usually reserved for violent or non-cooperative inmates. Manning has not been accused of such behavior. 

WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange has called Manning a “political prisoner” and has suggested that the U.S. Army is trying to break the 23 year old soldier to use him as state’s evidence in an eventual indictment and trial of Assange.

Meanwhile, David House, an MIT researcher and the only friend of Manning to recently visit him, told MSNBC on Thursday that he Pentagon was not telling the truth about properly treating Manning.

"I've been traveling to see Bradley in the brig since last September, and over the several months I've been visiting him I've noticed a remarkable decline in his psychological state and his physical well-being," House said. "I definitely think the conditions he's being kept in are inhumane and they're starting to weigh on his personality and physical appearance to a great degree," House told MSNBC (see video below for more of MSNBC's interview with House).

The influential liberal blog, Firedoglake.com, has started an online petition campaign demanding better treatment for Manning, calling the conditions of his imprisonment “cruel, inhumane, and disproportionate for the crime with which he has only been charged.”