In the beginning of the war, from what I read at uboatarchive.net, there were some very strange rules passed out to the boats; they were expected to go by 'prize rules' and had to board the vessels to make sure of the nationality, as well as examine manifesto to see if it was worth taking as a prize, or just sinking it.
Even with french ships in convoys with british, the initial orders were to not touch any french merchants, which meant the subs could never make night attacks, since flags were impossible to see in the darkened convoys.
This policy changed pretty soon, and by -43 I read even well lit up neutrals were targets for the submarines.
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