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Prisoners who were abused in the children's homes they grew up in and are later interviewed by police investigating historic child abuse are routinely left unsupported after they have made a statement, according to an MP.

Claire Curtis-Thomas, chairperson of the All Party Group for Abuse Investigations, last week told the home affairs select committee into child abuse in homes that prisoners do not receive any counselling to cope with the trauma of recalling distressing memories of abuse.

"When these interviews are over they are just left. I don't think that is the right way to treat people," she said.

Curtis-Thomas also highlighted the issue of false allegations of abuse and said she had been approached by around 20 constituents, some of them care workers in children's homes, complaining they had been falsely accused.

She is calling for a change to the way interviews are conducted and said that the process, which usually involves suspected victims being interviewed in their homes without an independent witness present, lacked openness and offered "significant opportunity for abuse".

The absence of any academic research into the robustness of the processes was a matter of "enormous concern", she claimed. But one key way to improve it would be to introduce tape recording of all police interviews, which would prevent officers prompting witnesses and could be submitted in evidence.

Curtis-Thomas claimed that many investigations into abuse were carried out with an "over-zealous" approach in an attempt to "right the wrongs of the past" when the nation had been guilty of "ignoring the cries of children who had been abused in institutions".