A Cairo prosecution office has ordered the detention of a police officer and a low-ranking policeman over the death of a young man in police custody on Friday.

The young man, nicknamed Mohamed Afroto, was arrested on Friday on charges of drug dealing and taken to a police station in Cairo's Moqattam district.

The two policemen are accused of "murder and use of brutality," a source from the prosecution office told Ahram Online.

Prosecutors have also ordered the detention for four days of 43 people arrested on charges of storming the police station on Saturday following the man's death.

Clashes erupted between protesters and police on Saturday when news of the detainee's death spread. Protesters set fire to tyres and vehicles near the police station and police fired teargas and birdshot.

Protesters blamed police for the death, while his family said that he was tortured to death in custody.

Several unnamed security sources were quoted by local media as saying that Afroto died of a drug overdose.

The prosecution said the man's body "showed no outward injuries." 

However, a post-mortem report said the death was caused by "severe laceration of the spleen and abdominal bleeding."

Egypt's Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar ordered his ministry's department of inspection to launch a probe into the incident.