Britain may join US-led research involving brain scans and other tests on veterans of the first Gulf war.

Results from neuro-imaging in the US has led a panel commissioned by the federal government to suggest a "probable link" between exposure to toxic chemicals and illnesses among troops who served in the 1991 conflict.

Robert Haley, a scientist with the University of Texas, has claimed that work done by his team and others indicates low levels of sarin nerve agent, released by bombing or destruction of weapons dumps, did damage brain cells in some veterans.

Dr Haley is a member of the panel whose widely leaked report will be published next week.

The Ministry of Defence denies both the existence of Gulf war syndrome and the likelihood of any biologically detectable effects on troops from the destruction of a weapons depot at Khamisayah, in Iraq, a possible sourceof nerve agents. This led to a plume, which a US congressional investigation has said may have covered the whole theatre of war, a claim not accepted by either US or British governments.

But the MoD revealed yesterday that its advisers on the Medical Research Council were reviewing all the evidence from brain imaging "to consider whether a call for UK research proposals is needed."

Dr Haley's work is being replicated by another study in the US comparing images from veterans who served in the Gulf and those who did not.

British government advisers have been sceptical about the research so far and point out that scientists in the US do not all agree about the possible effects of nerve agents.

But the MoD is keen to show it is examining all possible avenues, before the publication of both the US research advisory committee report and the results of Lord Lloyd's unofficial inquiry into illnesses in British veterans before which ministers and their officials refused to appear.