No US planes would be welcome in Ireland if they had previously been involved in the secret transfer of prisoners, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said yesterday.
But addressing the European Parliament's inquiry into rendition, Mr Ahern admitted current aviation rules meant it was virtually impossible to police European airports.
"In the context of cross-border terrorism that we have now, I am amazed that so little information is available [ on flights]," said Mr Ahern, who called for the amendment of the Chicago Convention, the 1944 regulation that governs international air travel.
Mr Ahern told the committee that there was 750-1,750 movements of private aircraft through Irish airports each month and it was clear that there were aspects of the regulation that needed to be reviewed to provide more information on such flights.
Under the Chicago Convention the information available on flights is limited to the last stop on a particular flightpath just hours before they enter European airspace.
This meant it was virtually impossible for EU authorities to know what was transited in an out of their airports, said Mr Ahern, who insisted that he accepted the assurances provided by the US that no rendition flights had stopped off at Irish airports.
In an angry exchange with Italian socialist MEP Claudio Fava, Mr Ahern accused him of making unsubstantiated and ambiguous allegations about Ireland's role in CIA renditions. He said the parliamentary committee's report, which was drawn up by Mr Fava, exaggerated the number of suspect CIA flights that had used Shannon airport.
He said the figure of 147 flights was extremely questionable. If there were any questions about flights through Ireland it was at most three flights, said Mr Ahern, who also criticised publication of the report before he had attended the committee.
One of these suspect flights, involving a plane known as the "Guantánamo Express", stopped off at Shannon to refuel after taking part in the rendition of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar, who has been detained without trial in Egypt and subjected to torture.
Mr Fava said the Government had only confirmed Mr Ahern's appearance 24 hours before the report was due to go to the parliament's translators. He noted that Ireland recorded the third highest number of CIA flight stopovers after Britain and Germany.