Britain used servicemen as human guinea pigs to test clothing against radiation in the south Australian desert during the 1950s and 60s, a researcher at Dundee University claimed yesterday.

Sue Rabbitt Roff said she had found Australian archive material that showed 24 Australian personnel were ordered to walk across contaminated craters after atomic blasts to test how different clothing protected them from radiation.

The Ministry of Defence admitted that 12 servicemen from Britain, Australia and New Zealand were asked to test protective clothing in contaminated areas as part of an 80-strong force, whose role was to test equipment subjected to radiation in Australia in the 50s and 60s. An MoD spokeswoman said: "We were testing the suits for performance and how they would react to very low levels of radiation exposure."

The Australian Labor party called for a new inquiry into nuclear trials at Maralinga, 600 miles west of Adelaide. But the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, said he would examine Professor Rabbitt Roff's findings before raising the issue with the British government.

Between 1952 and 1963 the British government, backed by Australia, exploded numerous atomic weapons and tested nuclear material at Monte Bello Island, off Western Australia, and at Maralinga. More than 14,000 Australian and 22,000 British servicemen were exposed to the blasts.

Prof Rabbitt Roff said the newly discovered document "puts the lie to the British government's claim that they never used humans for guinea pig type experiments in weapons trials in Australia".

Lawyers for the British government told the European court of human rights in 1997 that none of the servicemen who witnessed the blasts were deliberately used in nuclear experiments, successfully defeating former officers' compensation claims.

An Australian royal commission report in 1985 failed to prove servicemen were used as guinea pigs, but demanded that the British government pay for a £43m clean-up of the contaminated area, which was finally concluded last year.

With fallout from the blasts reaching Adelaide and Melbourne, the commission ruled that civilians affected by the tests were entitled to seek compensation. Maralinga Aborigines were awarded £5.4m damages from Britain in 1994.

Maralinga's inhospitable desert was last year declared safe for hunting by Aborigines, but everyday access remains restricted to a swath of desert more than 250 miles across, due to the presence of 20kg of plutonium in the ground.