EU: States should introduce tougher controls to ensure they can check whether aircraft passing through their territory are being used for illegal purposes, a report by Europe's human rights watchdog said yesterday.
The report published by the Council of Europe also said that European states needed tougher laws to guarantee oversight of their spy services and better controls over foreign agents operating on their territory.
But the report did not produce new evidence that the CIA had run secret jails in Europe for terrorist suspects.
"It would appear that most of Europe is a happy hunting ground for foreign security services," said Council of Europe secretary-general Terry Davis at the publication of the report.
"Hardly any country, with the clear exception of Hungary, has any legal provisions to ensure an effective oversight over the activities of foreign security services on their territory."
Mr Davis criticised inadequate responses received from Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Poland, saying they faced fresh demands for answers to the four sets of questions sent to all member states.
In his report, Mr Davis also urged better oversight and regulation by national parliaments and judicial bodies when human rights violations were suspected.
He called for better controls over foreign secret services as it was "virtually impossible" for states to know if their airspace or airports were being used in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The report notes that the US-Ireland extradition treaty of 2001 permits the detention of prisoners by US officials as they pass through Ireland. However, any such transit requires the express consent of Ireland, says the report, which is a result of one of several continuing investigations into allegations of "rendition" flights and secret CIA bases in Europe made by the NGO Human Rights Watch.