Australia's detention of asylum-seekers on a remote Pacific island "amounts to torture" under international law, Amnesty International said Monday in a report that alleged widespread abuse and an "epidemic of self-harm".

The Nauru facility -- which holds just over 400 men, women and children -- has been under scrutiny after allegations of thousands of incidents of abuse and self-harm were leaked to the Guardian Australia in August.

Just over 800 asylum-seeker men are held in the Manus camp, with Australia in August agreeing to close it following a Papua New Guinea Supreme Court ruling declaring that holding people there was unconstitutional and illegal.

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