Prime Minister Tony Abbott is coming under increasing pressure to boycott the Commonwealth summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka this week over concerns about the island nation's dismal human rights record.

India announced this weekend that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be the second leader to avoid the summit.  Canadian Prime Minister was first to boycott the meeting, running from 15 to 17 November in the Sri Lankan capital.

Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon says Abbott ought to boycott the meeting after she and New Zealand lawmaker Jan Logie were prevented from holding a press conference on human rights issues in Colombo.  Immigration officials seized their passports and took them to their hotels for three hours of questioning.

“I was very concerned that my liberty was denied to me for more than three hours,” Rhiannon said after arriving back in Sydney from Colombo.

Human rights group Amnesty International said Rhiannon's detention confirms a pattern of continuing human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, including intimidation and incarceration of political leaders and journalists, harassment of minorities, reported disappearances and allegations of extrajudicial killings.