An asylum seeker has committed suicide after being moved to a detention centre in Scotland from a London removal centre following riots there last week.

A Home Office spokesperson confirmed that a 23-year-old Vietnamese male had been found in an accommodation unit at Dungavel Detention Centre and was later pronounced dead. The case will now be investigated by the police and the prisons and probation ombudsman.

Around 440 detainees were transferred from Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre, west London, to prisons and other centres after a riot broke out when a man was found hanged in his cell. Seventeen people have been arrested in connection with the disturbance.

"It's an inevitable outcome of locking men, women and children up without an accusation of crime indefinitely," said Emma Ginn, of Campaigns to Stop Arbitrary Detentions at Yarl's Wood.

The Home Office predicted that Harmondsworth would be closed for "weeks rather than months".

Sarah Cutler, policy and research officer at Bail for Immigration Detainees, said she was concerned about those detainees held in prisons not having access to advice and lawyers.

Following news of the second death, she added: "Our experience is that people with mental health problems or with a history of self-harm and attempted suicide are often detained regardless and this is not acceptable at all."

Anne Owers, chief inspector of prisons, slammed Harmondsworth last year as "essentially an unsafe place for both staff and detainees".

This week, the suitability of immigration removal centres was questioned further as Owers published inspection reports into Haslar and Dover IRCs.

Despite some improvements, Owers said there remained some "significant failings" at Haslar IRC in Gosport and that much of the accommodation was "simply unacceptable". Staff training in suicide prevention was not up to date.

Owers praised the way Dover had made its transition from a young offender institution to a removal centre, but criticised the use of strip conditions in the care and segregation unit. She pointed out, however, that this practice had ceased during the inspection.

- Reports from www.homeoffice.gov.uk/justice/prisons/inspprisons