Many EU nations were aware that the CIA used their territory for the transfer or detention of terror suspects, a draft European parliament report says.

The report follows months of investigation by a special committee of MEPs led by an Italian, Claudio Fava.

"Many governments co-operated passively or actively (with the CIA)," said Mr. Fava, quoted by AFP news agency.

He accused top EU officials including foreign policy chief Javier Solana of failing to give full details to MEPs.

The report echoed allegations made in June by the Council of Europe - Europe's leading human rights watchdog - that European states were complicit in illegal CIA operations as part of the US-led "war on terror".

US President George W Bush admitted in September that the CIA had used prisons abroad for the secret detention of terror suspects, but he did not specify where the prisons were.

He insisted the suspects had not been tortured.

EU "Informed"

The draft report says several EU governments were aware of the CIA's secret detention and transfer of terror suspects.

It further accuses governments and top EU officials of failing to co-operate fully with the European parliament's investigation.

Mr. Solana's evidence to the inquiry contained "omissions and denials", the draft report says.

And EU anti-terror coordinator Gijs de Vries was also criticised over evidence he had given.

Mr. Fava's report singled out the governments of Poland and Romania of failing to co-operate with the investigation.

Both countries have strongly denied media reports that they tolerated secret CIA detention centres on their territory.

The report says the US government had first informed EU member states in 2005 that it was using their territory to transfer terror suspects.

Over the course of three meetings with EU officials, "the Americans spoke in an explicit manner about the transfer system as a method in the fight against terrorism", Mr. Fava told AFP.

Investigations Urged

The report speaks of at least 18 suspected CIA "extraordinary renditions" of terror suspects - the term used for transfers to third countries for interrogation.

They included the cases of a German, Khaled el-Masri - allegedly abducted in Macedonia and then detained in Afghanistan - and Egyptian former imam Abu Omar, allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents in Milan.

On Tuesday, a US court began to hear an appeal from Mr. Masri after he lost an earlier lawsuit demanding damages and an apology from the US government.

Mr. Fava cited at least 1,245 overflights or stopovers by CIA planes in Europe - some of which he said were probably prisoner transfers.

His investigation was launched after press reports last year claiming the US operated secret prisons in some EU states and had used others as staging posts to transfer terror suspects.

The draft report urges the countries named within it to launch their own investigations into whether they violated EU human rights law, the Associated Press news agency says.

Opposition parties today called for a full public inquiry into “extraordinary rendition” following a scathing EU report that accused the British government of obstructing investigations into the controversial flights.

The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National party jointly attacked the government for its “complicity” with the US government over the practice, whereby secret CIA flights transferred detainees to locations where they risked being tortured.

The Lib Dems’ foreign affairs spokesman, Michael Moore, said: “It is damning to learn that the Foreign Office believes using information extracted under torture is not banned under international law, particularly when the House of Lords has ruled otherwise.

“The government has obstructed all attempts at scrutiny on this issue,” he added.
“The public deserves answers and ought to know how involved their government was in this illegal process. There must now be a full public inquiry.”

The SNP, which compiled a dossier detailing intelligence flights through Scottish airports, called on both Tony Blair’s government and the Scottish executive to come clean over the issue.

The nationalists’ foreign affairs and defence spokesman, Angus Robertson, said: “We need an end to the ‘hear no evil, see no evil’ approach by New Labour ministers.

“It is ironic that in the week that the EP [European parliament] inquiry has made these damning findings the Crown Office in Scotland has concluded against pursuing this issue.

“This is despite the credible evidence about intelligence flights through Scottish airports provided to the Council of Europe inquiry.”

Conservative Central Office declined to comment on the report, insisting that they “do not comment” on rendition.

The report condemned the extraordinary rendition of two UK residents, Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi citizen, and Jamil el-Banna, a Jordanian citizen, seized in the Gambia in 2002.

They were “turned over to US agents and flown to Afghanistan and then to Guantánamo, where they remain detained without trial or any form of judicial assistance”, it said.

The men’s abduction was helped “by partly erroneous information” supplied by MI5.

The report also condemned the treatment of Binyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian citizen and UK resident arrested in Pakistan and at one point held in Morocco where questions “appear to have been inspired by information supplied by the UK”.

His lawyer has described what the report called “horrific torture”.

The report also referred to the rendition of Martin Mubanga, a UK citizen arrested in Zambia in 2002 and flown to Guantánamo Bay.

It said he was interrogated by British officials at the US detention centre in Cuba where he was held and tortured for four years and then released without trial.

It expressed “serious concern” about 170 stopovers at British airports by CIA-operated aircraft which on many occasions came from, or were bound for, countries linked with “extraordinary rendition circuits”.

The MEPs’ report singled out Geoff Hoon, the minister for Europe and former defence secretary, for his attitude to their special committee’s inquiry into the CIA flights.

They expressed outrage at what they said was the view of the chief legal adviser to the Foreign Office, Sir Michael Wood, that “receiving or possessing” information extracted under torture, if there was no direct participation in the torture, was not per se banned under international law.

They said Sir Michael declined to give evidence to the committee. The Guardian gave evidence to the committee on the CIA flights.

The Foreign Office said last night that Mr Hoon had answered all the questions put to him.

He said the government did not approve of any transfer of individuals through the UK where there were substantial grounds to believe they would face the real risk of torture.

Other senior EU figures were also criticised.

Yesterday’s report described in detail how CIA Gulfstream jets landed in secret at Szymany airport in Poland.

There was circumstantial evidence, it said, that there may have been a secret detention centre at the nearby intelligence training centre at Stare Kiejkuty.

It disclosed that records, from a confidential source, of an EU and Nato meeting with the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, last December confirmed that “member states had knowledge of the [US] programme of extraordinary renditions and secret prisons”.

The CIA flew 1,245 secret flights into European airspace, according to a European Parliament draft report obtained by ABC News.

The report is the result of a year-long investigation into secret CIA "extraordinary rendition" flights and prisons in Europe.

No European country has officially acknowledged being part of the program.

But citing records from an informal meeting of European and NATO foreign ministers last December that included Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Parliament's draft report concludes "member states had knowledge of the programme of extraordinary rendition and secret prisons."

The report said the recently fired head of Italian intelligence, General Nicolo Pollari, "concealed the truth" when he appeared before the Parliament's investigating committee and stated "that Italian agents played no part in any CIA kidnapping."

The report detailed the involvement of many European countries in what it called the CIA's "illegal" program.

It listed the number of CIA flights, or stopovers, it found in a number of countries.

Italy: 46 stopovers.

United Kingdom: 170 stopovers.

Germany: 336 stopovers.

Spain: 68 stopovers.

Portugal: 91 stopovers.

Ireland: 147 stopovers.

Greece: 64 stopovers

Cyprus: 57 stopovers.

Romania: 21 stopovers.

Poland: 11 stopovers.