How do I examine my iPad for malware? Lately I occasionally get redirected to other websites when I load some news websites.
It could be a banner redirect I guess, but I suspect something more sinister.

The iPad is NOT jailbroken and runs the latest iOS 5

Last three incidents were  


clicking a link in an email from linkedIn which linked to an article on Forbes.com. When the article loaded, it was replaced (or a link popped up in a new window - not sure now) with a site that was surely not a forbes advertiser.
using the twitter app, I clicked a tweet from spitsnieuws.nl, it opened a pane inside the twitter app with the article, once it had loaded, it was replaced with a site surely not a spitsnieuws advertiser.  
this URL got replaced after load. So I'm pretty sure it is an ad server issue
http://www.java-forums.org/java-applets/30447-java-print-service-applets-ie.html
another URL http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2168061/French-electrician-stranded-Moroccan-desert-rebuilt-wrecked-car-motorbike-drove-civilisation.html


I can only imagine both situations were safari or embedded safari, but I do not know how the official twitter app loads web pages into its own pane

Googling for malware on iPad has so far turned up nothing.

Suggestions? I can of course revert to factory default, but it would be useful to know what I had encountered.

Looking at the dsn settings, they start with 10. so local to my network - none of my other devices (iPad3, iPhone4/4S, iMac, macBook (yes, I'm a fanboy) ) on the same network shows this behaviour.

For now I have cleared cookies and application data. I will try to reproduce.
If your device is not jailbroken the odds of malware on iOS are basically 0, at least for what you're describing. There is currently no way anything could be installed without going through the App Store. Even then, a malicious app could only access its own files in its own sandbox. So, no installed app on iOS could modify anything outside of it.

This is also why you won't find any app scanning your iPad for malware. A malware scanner would need access to all system files but no app on iOS could do that (except for Apple's own apps).

This sounds more like a problem made by the particular websites themselves.