  We propose and discuss methods for detecting quasi-molecular complexes which
are expected to form in strongly interacting optical lattice systems.
Particular emphasis is placed on the detection of composite fermions forming in
Bose-Fermi mixtures. We argue that, as an indirect indication of the composite
fermions and a generic consequence of strong interactions, periodic
correlations must appear in the atom shot noise of bosonic absorption images,
similar to the bosonic Mott insulator [S. F\"olling, et al., Nature {\bf 434},
481 (2005)]. The composites can also be detected directly and their
quasi-momentum distribution measured. This method -- an extension of the
technique of noise correlation interferometry [E. Altman et al., Phys. Rev. A
{\bf 79}, 013603 (2004)] -- relies on measuring higher order correlations
between the bosonic and fermionic shot noise in the absorption images. However,
it fails for complexes consisting of more than three atoms.
