Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the United States has been told for a second time that Australia will not resettle detainees freed from the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.

Ms Gillard says US President George Bush's administration was told yesterday that a second request made in early December to resettle an unspecified number of detainees had been rejected.

She says the detainees did not meet Australia's stringent national security and immigration criteria.

She says her government had similarly rejected a resettlement request from the Bush administration in early 2008.