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"They are distressing to read about and they are very serious."
Asked if there should be an inquiry into the role of British troops, he said: "I think anything that suggests that basic rules of war, conflict and engagement have been broken or that torture has been in any way condoned are extremely serious and need to be looked at."
His response would appear to put him at odds with the Ministry of Defence, whose secretary of state, Liam Fox, is viewed as one of the most hardline backers of an aggressive defence posture in the Cabinet.
The ministry's statement in response to the Wikileaks disclosures suggested it was giving priority to the ongoing Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war.
"We condemn any un-authorised release of classified material," it said. "This can put the lives of UK service personnel and those of our allies at risk and make the job of Armed Forces in all theatres of operation more difficult and more dangerous.
"It would be inappropriate to speculate on the specific detail of these documents without further investigation while the Iraq inquiry is ongoing."
The 400,000 documents released by Wikileaks contained allegations of US and British troops turning a blind eye to torture and other abuses by Iraqi forces, and of higher than previously reported civilian casualties, including at the hands of American soldiers.
The government's response was led at the weekend by Mr Clegg and Vince Cable, the business secretary, who is also a Liberal Democrat and a critic of the war.
The Conservative Party supported the then prime minister, Tony Blair, in his decision to join the Americans in invading Iraq, but made little comment. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said Mr Fox was making no personal comment on the Wikileaks disclosures.
There was also a difference of tone between Mr Clegg and Mr Cable, who in a separate interview with Sky News was highly critical of the leaks of information.
"The Liberal Democrats were strong opponents of the Iraq war and we do feel vindicated by what's happening," Mr Cable said.
"But the way in which the leaks happened, which has indeed - potentially by exposing people's identity - put lives at risk, is not a responsible way of doing it."
He too backed calls for an investigation into the new revelations.
As well as the allegations of torture, the documents have also disclosed failings by the British military and British security contractors.
In one incident in March 2005, a British helicopter after being alerted by army intelligence began tailing a car said to contain the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the notorious Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But it ran out of fuel and by the time it had returned from base troops on the ground had lost track of him.
Zarqawi, who had fought in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden and had a £25 million bounty on his head, went on to lead an insurgency marked by particular atrocities against Iraq's Shia community that cost thousands of lives. He was finally killed with his family in an American air strike in June 2006.
Human rights groups have also called for a full investigation into the information contained in the leaks, while a British lawyer, Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, claimed that British soldiers had killed an eight-year-old girl in Basra.
It is thought he was referring to Hanan Saleh Matrud, who was killed in 2003. British forces have admitted her injuries could have been caused by a ricocheting warning shot.
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