The U.S. military command in Bagram, Afghanistan, confirmed Wednesday that it has barred reporters who embed with its forces from videotaping or photographing U.S. military personnel killed in action.

Several senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee — including the chairman, Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, and the ranking Republican, John McCain of Arizona — said Wednesday they were not aware of the change in policy and wanted to find out more about it.

“My reaction is I’d like to talk to the commander and I’d like to talk to the secretary of Defense,” said Levin.

The new policy applies to the eastern region of Afghanistan and it was not immediately clear if the directive is being implemented elsewhere in Afghanistan or Iraq.

The ban on taking certain battlefield pictures has potentially huge implications for how the public perceives the conflict in Afghanistan. It also raises questions about censorship during wartime. Images of dead soldiers have affected the public’s view of wars from Antietam through Vietnam and up to a present-day controversy over photos of returning flag-draped caskets.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the change could lead to sanitized war coverage.

“War photographers should not be careless when photographing combat, but they should be allowed to record reality,” Dalglish said. “That’s what serves us as a nation.”

The policy change in Afghanistan was made without announcement in early September and is partly a reaction to the Associated Press’s publication days before of photographs of a dying Marine, a spokesman for the command said. When the AP ran images of mortally wounded Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates wrote the president of AP to protest its decision.

Typically, embedded reporters in Afghanistan must agree to withhold publication of photographs of a wounded service member until he or she gives permission for release of the images. In the event the person is killed, the news organization must wait until the family has been notified and an official announcement of the death occurs before it is allowed to release the person’s name or any images associated with the death. Then it is up to the news organization to decide whether to publish the photos.

There are other restrictions on what reporters can publish from war zones based on protection of operational security.

The new policy keeps all the previous restrictions for written coverage of slain military personnel. But for pictures, it now says: “Media will not be allowed to photograph or record video of U.S. personnel killed in action.”

President Obama earlier this year reversed the policy of the George W. Bush administration that had barred photographs of caskets bearing the remains of dead military personnel as they came back to the United States.

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg , D-N.J., who had criticized the Bush administration for its ban on photographing caskets, said he would like to learn more about the new policy on taking battlefield pictures.