BRASILIA, Brazil -- (AP) -- Brazil's top human rights official says his country should agree to take in Guantánamo Bay detainees.

Paulo Vannuchi tells the O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper that ''from a human rights point of view I would be favorable to receiving inmates from Guantánamo.'' His office confirmed his remarks on Tuesday.

Brazil's Foreign Ministry has said it was studying the possibility of receiving an undetermined number of the approximately 240 detainees still being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.

President Barack Obama has pledged to close the detention center by the end of the year and has barred harsh interrogation techniques of prisoners, which many critics say were human rights abuses.