EU governments urged to cooperate with CIA prisons probe

The European Commission called on EU member states Tuesday to cooperate fully with an ongoing Council of Europe probe into alleged secret CIA prisons in Europe, after an interim report into the affair.

The European Union's executive made the call after the report cited convincing evidence that Washington sent detainees to third countries to be tortured, but no "irrefutable evidence" of the existence of secret CIA prisons.

"We have taken note of the ... serious interim conclusion that 'it is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware' (of rendition.)," said EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini.

"It is now for the member states of the Council of Europe to clarify their position in this regard, and in this context (Frattini) firmly calls upon the member states of the EU to cooperate fully with the Council of Europe's investigations as promptly, and comprehensively as possible."

Dick Marty, the rapporteur of the Council of Europe on the CIA prisons affair, said there was "a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of relocation or outsourcing of torture".

The report, however, found no direct evidence of CIA-run facilities on European soil.

"At this stage of the investigations, there is no formal, irrefutable evidence of the existence of secret CIA detention centers in Romania, Poland or any other country," Marty wrote in his interim report.