EU: The European Parliament's investigation into rendition flights and secret prisons in Europe plans to call Edward Horgan, a retired Army commandant as a witness.
It also plans to invite Irish ministers and officials to discuss how Shannon airport is used by the US military and secret services for the stopover of flights, according to the work programme proposal for the parliamentary committee of inquiry.
The programme, which may be amended as the inquiry continues, also plans to invite several former and present US officials and politicians including CIA director Porter Goss, former CIA director George Tenet, Senator John Kerry, Senator John McCain, and Richard Clarke, the former counter-terrorism tsar in the US.
But it is not clear if serving or former US officials will agree to attend public hearings of the committee.
In 2001, members of the Bush administration refused to meet MEPs investigating the US-run surveillance network Echelon.
However, some recent media reports have said US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is willing to co-operate with the inquiry.
The committee also plans to call victims of rendition, such as Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen abducted in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in late 2003, who was transferred to Afghanistan via a CIA aircraft, where he suffered detention and torture before being released.
The committee's rapporteur, Giovanni Fava, said it was logical to call EU justice ministers to the inquiry. However, in some countries other ministers and members of government may be called to appear.
Meanwhile, Mr Horgan, an Irish peace activist and author of a report detailing the use of Shannon airport by the US military, said he would be delighted to attend the committee, which held its first working meeting in Strasbourg this week.
Simon Coveney, Fine Gael MEP and a member of the committee, said yesterday that the Government should set up a system to search US military and CIA flights that stop at Shannon.
Despite assurances from the US that no rendition took place through Shannon, the Irish authorities needed to reassure a sceptical public on this issue, said Mr Coveney.