An Argentine woman has accused the two international rugby players of raping and severely beating her, according to her lawyer Natacha Romano.

Hugo Auradou, 20, and Oscar Jegou, 21, were transferred on Thursday to the city of Mendoza, where the alleged crime took place, for questioning by prosecutors. The players deny the rape and claim that the encounter with the alleged victim was consensual.

Under the criminal justice system, they cannot be formally charged with a crime until they testify before the natural judge.

The men were arrested in Buenos Aires on Monday, two days after a friendly match against Los Pumas, when investigators found that the alleged victim's injuries were consistent with her account of rape.

The victim's lawyer said the woman suffered "severe" violence at the hands of her attackers, with injuries to her face, back, breasts, legs and ribs, as well as several bite and scratch marks.

The woman went with one of the men from a nightclub to a hotel room, where she claims she was held against her will and abused for several hours. "The violence was severe," Romano said. "There is more than one crime to investigate," the alleged victim's lawyer warned.

The woman claims to have been raped "at least six times" by one of the men and once by the other, according to the lawyer.

The players' lawyer, Rafael Cuneo Libarona, arrived in Mendoza on Wednesday and said the "sexual relations" had been "consensual" according to his clients, whom he said he firmly believed.

"There are witnesses who saw her leave (the hotel), there are cameras that saw her leave, apparently there are no injuries in the footage," said Libarona, who is well known in the legal world because his brother, Mariano Cuneo Libarona, was a prominent lawyer and is now Argentina's justice minister.

However, the woman's lawyer said that "the overwhelming proof that there was no consent is the victim's body" and the injuries it bears.

Ms Romano also said that the woman, 39, claimed to have accompanied one of the men to a hotel in central Mendoza in the early hours of Sunday morning after meeting him in a nightclub. Once in the hotel room, the woman "realised that the invitation for a drink was a ruse" and asked to go to the bathroom.

The man "realised she was trying to escape, immediately grabbed her, threw her on the bed, started to undress her and began to beat her savagely with his fist," Romano said, recounting her client's account of the alleged incident.

The woman has bruises on her face, back, breasts, legs and ribs to prove she was beaten, the lawyer said, as well as several bite and scratch marks.

Mendoza prosecutor Daniela Chaler told LV10 radio on Tuesday that there were "convincing elements" in the woman's testimony and that her injuries were consistent with her version of events, although they were "not necessarily exclusive" to sexual assault.

The French Rugby Federation (FFR) said the players had denied any coercion or violence and stressed the importance of giving them the opportunity to defend themselves. "If the facts are true, they are incredibly serious," FFR president Florian Grill told reporters on arrival in Argentina.

Grill also said the players had "a completely different version of events" to the woman's, with "many inconsistencies". He added: "We're not judges, we're not investigators, but we think the Argentine justice system should look at the case very quickly.

The penalty for sexual assault in Argentina ranges from 6 to 15 years, according to the penal code. However, in the case of two aggressors, the sentence could be up to 20 years.