European politicians today demanded their governments reveal the location of secret CIA prisons after President Bush admitted Washington held terror suspects in jails abroad.
Mr Bush said yesterday that the CIA had interrogated dozens of suspects at undisclosed overseas locations and 14 of those held had now been sent to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The president of the Council of Europe, Renée Van der Linden, today said the admission vindicated the investigation carried out by its rapporteur, Dick Marty.
Mr Marty reported last June that the CIA was flying prisoner illegally detained across Europe and north Africa to secret detention centres for torture.
He also found that planes used to transport the prisoners under what the United States calls its "extraordinary rendition programme" had flown through Shannon airport
The EU parliament is conducting a separate investigation and later this month will interview Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern over Ireland's alleged role in renditions.
Mr Marty said Ireland had colluded in the programme by accepting diplomatic assurances from the United States that Shannon was not used by covert CIA planes for transferring the prisoners.
It is also due to question Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos next week about its alleged collusion with the CIA.
Mr
Ahern will be asked about what the Government knew about 158 CIA flights through Shannon, Dublin and Cork airports between September 12th, 2001, and the end of 2005.
Attorney General Rory Brady and Irish Human Rights Commission president Maurice Manning will also be asked to answer questions at the public hearings.
The vice-chair of the committee Sarah Ludford said Mr Bush's admission proved he had previously been
lying.
"He also exposes to ridicule those arrogant government leaders in Europe who dismissed as unfounded our fears about extraordinary rendition," said the British Liberal Democrat.
Labour Party MEP Proinsias De Rossa added his voice to the chorus of MEPs demanding to know the locations of the camps and said they should be closed down immediately.
He also said the Taoiseach must demand a clear statement from the US regarding the use of Irish airports.
"The Taoiseach must also, without further delay, establish an inspection procedure to ensure that, in line with or international obligations," Mr De Rossa added.
Fine Gael MEP Simon Coveney said the US "cannot make up the rules as it goes along". International standards must be respected in order to maintain
"moral leadership on the overall fight against terrorism," he said.
Mr Marty's report identified Poland and Romania as countries where the United States had set up interrogation centres.
German MEP Wolfgang Kreissl-Doerfler urged both countries to provide any relevant information to the committee.
"We need to know if there has been any complicity in illegal acts by governments of EU countries or states seeking EU membership," he said.
MEPs are set to travel to both countries as well as Britain and Germany, as part of their investigations.
Mr Bush's statement overshadowed a European Parliament debate on the future of a US-EU agreement on the transfer of personal data on transatlantic airline passengers to US authorities to help counter terrorism.
The European Court of Justice ruled the practice illegal in May. The Commission wants to replace it with a similar pact on a different legal basis when it expires at the end of this month.
Most MEPs accepted this short-term expedient to avoid disrupting air travel, but many demanded better data protection guarantees when renegotiating the deal next year.
Warsaw said the Polish president Lech Kaczynski had no knowledge of detention centres in Poland at this stage. "If the issue continues to come up and if there is international pressure, the president will ask appropriate services to investigate the issue once again," Mr Kaczynski's foreign policy adviser, said.
Romania has repeatedly denied having hosted secret prisons. "Romania's position on the matter of CIA prisons remains unchanged," a government spokeswoman said.
EU counterterrorism coordinator Gijs de Vries hoped Bush's disclosure would be a first step to finally shutting Guantanamo, "which has diminished America's moral authority in the world and provided a stumbling block in winning hearts and minds".
Of signs the United States plans to keep running the CIA jail programme, he told a news briefing in Brussels: "Detention without trial is illegal. It is like torture."
Additional reporting Agencies