Unemployed American bus driver Ariel Castro was held on an 8-million-dollar bond on Thursday on charges he kidnapped and raped three women and held them in his home for a decade.

In his first court appearance since the revelation of a crime that has shocked and disgusted a nation, the 52-year-old suspect did not enter a plea and was sent to county jail, where he is to be placed on suicide watch.

He was presented to the court by public defender Kathleen DeMetz, who said he was "charged with kidnapping and rape on one charge, kidnapping and rape on the second, kidnapping and rape on the third, and kidnapping on the fourth."

One of the captives gave birth to a daughter during the years they spent confined in the modest home of Castro, unable to escape until Monday, when the child's mother Amanda Berry managed to scream for help from a neighbor. Police arrived  and found two more women, 23-year-old Gina DeJesus and 32-year-old Michelle Knight

Two of the Ohio women were joyously reunited with their families on Wednesday, while the third received medical treatment. Police interrogated their alleged captor and searched another house on the same Cleveland street.

Castro's two brothers - Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50 - are also scheduled to make a court appearance, but on misdemeanor charges unrelated to the kidnappings and rapes, authorities said.

The women are believed to have only been allowed to leave the home briefly on two occasions, both times to go into the house's garage "in disguise," Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba told reporters.

"They don't believe they've been outside of the home for the last 10 years," he said. "They were not in one room, but they did know each other and they did know each other was there."

Cleveland City Councilman Brian Cummins, who based his information on a police report from the initial investigation and briefing by police department sources, said one of the three women - he did not know who - had suffered at least five miscarriages that Castro is accused of having intentionally caused by starving her for weeks and beating her in the abdomen.

Berry's baby was born in a plastic inflatable kiddy pool on Christmas Day, 2006, authorities said. A paternity test will be conducted to determine the girl's father.

All three women were held in the home's basement for long periods, restrained with ropes and chains and occasionally starved, according to Cummins. Authorities have described the condition of the home as squalid.

Castro, a former school bus driver whose family hails from Puerto Rico, has been described as a friendly neighbor who raised few suspicions but who also kept to himself.

AFP - Reuters