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Egyptian authorities are probing the death of a cart vendor who was beaten to death in police custody, a prosecution official said Saturday.

53-year-old Magdy Makin, a fish cart vendor, was arrested last Sunday at midnight after an altercation with policemen.

Hours later his lifeless body was brought to a nearby hospital with torture marks.

Videos of the Coptic Christian vendor's bloodied body later surfaced on social media, showing a bleeding backside and bruises on his face.

"The body showed clear signs of torture," his son Malak Magdy Makin told AFP.

"We are waiting for the forensic report to determine whether his death was natural or criminal," said prosecution official Adham Montasser.

Coptic Bishop Makarios had on Friday charged that Makin was tortured to death.

He said on his Facebook page that he visited Makin's family to express his condolences after the man died "as a result of ugly torture."

Under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt has witnessed a significant rise in cases of police torture, deaths in detention, and forced disappearances.

Activists accuse Sisi's government of allowing police too much free rein, which authorities have justified as needed to clamp down on political opponents, mostly the Muslim Brotherhood.

This week, a court sentenced a low-ranking police officer to life in prison for killing a tea vendor and injuring two others in Cairo earlier this year.

Zeinhom Abdel Razek had gone on a shooting rampage in April in the upscale suburban neighbourhood of Rehab after refusing to pay for a cup of tea, according to witnesses and the interior ministry.

Police abuses had helped fuel a 2011 uprising that unseated veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.