Police in Argentina have charged a 66-year-old man who they say kept his wife and adult son locked up in a dungeon for several years.

They say the filthy room at the back of Edgardo Oviedo's home in the coastal city of Mar del Plata had an iron door which was locked from the outside.

It had plates of dog food they believe was given to the woman and her son.

Reports say the woman has psychiatric problems and her 32-year-old son can barely speak, according to authorities.

Oviedo, 66, denies the charges of unlawful imprisonment.

Prosecutors were shocked by what they found, describing it as “the worst of human conditions”.