The government is considering allowing its prisoners conjugal visits to help rehabilitate them before they re-enter society, the New Straits Times reported today.

Well-behaved inmates with no sexually-transmitted diseases will be allowed visits from their spouses, the paper said, citing sources in the Prisons Department.

Prisoners will be allowed to spend 72 hours in a house with their spouses, children and parents, the report said. Married prisoners will be allowed to have sex with their spouses in a private room.

"The visit is to allow closer ties between prisoners and their families for as long as prison ethics and regulations are observed," the source said.

"It will not be a right, but rather a privilege."

Similar programmes abroad had helped prepare prisoners to return to society and kept family ties and marriages intact, the report said.

Drug rehabilitation centre president Mohamad Yunus Pathi supported the move, saying it was important for prisoners to have conjugal visits with their spouses.

"When prisoners are denied this, it can cause severe stress that can result in sexual disorders later," he told the newspaper.

Malaysia's prison department could not be reached for comment.