Jailed South African athlete Oscar Pistorius was rushed to hospital with wrist injuries at the weekend, but is now back in jail, a spokesperson for the prisons department said today.

The double-amputee Olympic sprinter, who was sentenced to six years on July 6 for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Feb 14, 2013, is serving time in Pretoria's Kgosi Mampuru II prison.

The prison yesterday "attended to Oscar's minor injuries on his wrists but further sent him to Kalafong Hospital for treatment" and he was subsequently returned to the corrections facility, spokesperson Manelisi Wolela said.

"The official report is that he made a call (for help) after falling off his bed," the department told News24.

City Press newspaper cited unnamed guards at the prison and hospital as claiming the injuries were self-inflicted.

"Oscar Pistorius denied speculations of a suicide attempt," Wolela said. "As a policy... we cannot further discuss a particular offender's personal condition... in public."

A spokesperson for the Pistorius family said they would not be responding to the media reports.

The athlete has already served one year in Kgosi Mampuru II for his initial manslaughter conviction, before being released into house arrest at his uncle's mansion in October 2015.

But in December 2015, the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the manslaughter verdict and changed it to murder.

Pistorius, who made history as the first amputee to compete against able-bodied athletes in the Olympics in 2012, fired four shots at Steenkamp through a toilet door in his Pretoria home in 2013.

- dpa