CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - The Australian government said Friday it will investigate claims that the country's soldiers were used as guinea pigs in British nuclear tests during the 1950s and '60s.

The troops were exposed to radioactive fallout just hours after bomb tests and tried out different types of clothing to determine what protection they offered against radiation, says Prof. Sue Rabbitt Roff, citing Australian archive documents.

Rabbitt Roff, a senior research fellow at Scotland's Dundee University, said the document contradicts British government assertions in the European Court of Human Rights in 1997 that no humans were ever used in experiments in nuclear-weapons trials.

''This document lists 24 Australian personnel who were used directly for clothing-trial experiments to see what sort of clothing would be more protective to men in a nuclear war situation,'' she told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

''They were asked to wear particular types of clothing and to crawl and walk through ground zero some hours and days after the detonation of nuclear weapons at Maralinga in order to see whether their clothing would give them any sort of protection from the radioactive materials,'' she said.

The British government conducted a series of atmospheric nuclear weapons tests at Monte Bello Island, off Western Australia, and at Maralinga in the deserts of southern Australia.

Opposition leader Kim Beazley described the claims as ''very disturbing'' and called for a full inquiry.

''We've had formal investigations in relation to Maralinga before, which to my recollection have not turned up with anything quite like this,'' he said..

Mark Croxford, a spokesperson for Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott, said Scott has asked officials to contact Rabbitt Roff for a copy of the documents.

Croxford said the government is compiling a registry of people who worked on the tests. The registry would be completed mid-year and used to begin a study into cancer rates among participants.

Rabbitt Roff said the named servicemen could be tracked to determine if the tests affected their health.

Lawyer Morris May, who represents a group of 30 Australian test victims seeking compensation, said the men had long claimed they were used as guinea pigs.

May said one Australian driver had described how he and a group of British officers had been instructed to walk through an area contaminated by a recent explosion while wearing army issue woollen clothing.

''He found that a bit odd because it was very hot and normally woollen clothing would not be used at Maralinga at that time,'' May told ABC radio.