A vacation to Malaysia has left two Americans with anything but fond memories.

The duo - a serving US Navy lawyer and an ex-Navy serviceman - suffered a humiliating experience after being hauled by immigration authorities late last year.

Their Nov 16 ordeal was highlighted by international news organisation BBC yesterday.

Lawyer Wayne Wright said he was walking in Chinatown when he was stopped by the authorities.

"...a gentleman in very scruffy type clothes, nothing that you would associate with the police or anyone in authority, walked up to me and asked me, 'Can I see your passport?'"

Fearing a scam, Wright refused and tried to move away.

"At that point he essentially lunged at me, grabbed me, put handcuffs on me really tightly and called for a few other people out in the crowd," he recounted [read full statement].

Wright then protested and told the men that he was a US citizen and that his passport was in his hotel room, located only a few hundred meters away.

However, his protest fell on deaf ears. The lawyer was shackled and put into a caged truck used by the immigration department.

Racial profiling

According to the BBC report, he met another American in the truck, ex-Navy serviceman Yahweh Passim Nam [read full statement].

The latter was also arrested for "refusing to show any identification". The truck was packed with some 30 other detainees, all of whom, just like Wright and Nam, were black.

"At this time, I'm knowing this is racial profiling, beyond a shadow of a doubt," said Nam, who is now a multimedia engineer living in Vancouver, Canada.

They were then taken to an immigration detention centre where for almost 24 hours they say they were fed only bread and water, not allowed to go to the toilet and refused permission to contact the US embassy.

"I was treated inhumanely," said Nam. "I felt like a dog, I felt like something worse than a dog."

Wright agreed. "Honestly this was probably the worst experience I have had in my life," he said.

According to the men, they were angered when the immigration officers treated the matter as a joke after having released them.

Both men had legitimate tourist visas.

Immigration Enforcement head Ishak Mohamad was approached by the BBC for comment, but was unavailable.

Nor would the Prime Minister's Department comment, although a senior official privately cast doubt on the accounts of the two men.

Minister defends officers

The US embassy in Kuala Lumpur also confirmed it had provided consular assistance to have them released from custody. No charges were filed against the men.

Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Mansor defended the action of immigration officers.

"Sorry to say especially there's a lot of Africans, black people, who come to our country and overstay," he told BBC. "What they did was just trying to clean up some of these people who've overstayed in our country."

The incident does not appear to be isolated as the country woos tourists in its Visit Malaysia Year 2007 campaign.

Several Africans approached on the streets of Kuala Lumpur by the BBC over the issue reported facing discrimination in Malaysia, whether it be people refusing to sit next to them on public transport, taxis refusing to stop for them through to harassment by police and immigration officers.