Tahir Shah, a British writer of Afghan origin, and Leon Flamholc and his son David -- London-based Swedish documentary filmmakers -- said military police detained them on July 18 while they were filming on a residential street in Peshawar, near the Afghan border.
They said they were working on a historical documentary about a Mogul emperor.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said Friday that the men were repatriated after an investigation found they'd been working in Pakistan without notifying local authorities or their embassies.
"They were making a film and they came on a tourist visa," Sherpao said. "We took a very lenient view of it and sent them back."
British and Swedish officials said they had been unable to see the men during their detention in Peshawar. They were deported Wednesday and arrived in London the same day.
In an e-mail to Associated Press Television News, David Flamholc wrote that they were held "for 16 days without any charge and without being given any information on why we were being held as they agreed that we hadn't done anything wrong."
The three men were not allowed to contact their embassies or families, and were sometimes "blindfolded, held in shackles at gunpoint, as well as being moved between several unknown locations," Flamholc said.
He said they were held in "small windowless concrete cells,
Flamholc said they were interrogated, with some questions focusing on "religious preferences" because the Swedish filmmakers are of Jewish descent. They were initially suspected of being spies, he said.
An official at the British High Commission said his mission had requested consular access to Shah during his detention, but had not seen him. The official, who declined to be named because of case's sensitivity, said the mission did not know about any reports of physical abuse.
"We tried to get information from the Foreign Ministry, but they never confirmed that they were held here," a Swedish government official said on condition of anonymity. "We knew they were held, but we didn't know how they were treated."
Pakistani authorities are sensitive about foreign media coverage, particularly in areas close to Afghanistan, and have detained reporters caught traveling without permission in tribal and border regions.
In December 2003, two French journalists for the magazine L'Express were arrested near the Afghan frontier and were accused by authorities of making a video of purported Taliban fighters training in Pakistani territory.
They were sentenced to six months in jail for violating the terms of their visas, but were soon released and deported.
