Gooday Ian,
You can do a continuity test with an Ohm-meter, this will test for DC continuity of each pin and can test for short circuits from pin to pin. But it will not test the cables performance at 480Mhz.
You would need a loop back tester to do this such as this one below,
http://www.passmark.com.au/products/usb2loopback.htm
Regards
Bill