(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission has received a reply from Romania in response to demands for an "explanation" after a Council of Europe report accused Bucharest of harbouring CIA detention centres.

"We have just received a reply from the Romanian authorities, which we are analysing," said justice affairs spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing.

He declined to disclose the content of the reply and said the Commission was still awaiting an answer from Poland.

In a report released in June, Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty accused Romania and Poland of allowing the CIA to run detention centres on their territory between 2003 and 2005.

He said the prisons, in northeast Poland and southeast Romania, were part of a "global spider's web" of detentions and illegal transfers spun out around the world by the United States and its allies after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Bucharest and Warsaw deny the accusations.

EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini wrote to them in July to highlight their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights to establish whether the allegations were true and provide details about any probes.

"We very much believe that the detail and seriousness of the conclusions of the report do require detailed explanations from the member states concerned," Roscam Abbing said, stressing that the Commission was still awaiting Warsaw's reply.

He said Brussels would make an assessment "once we have both replies and we have analysed this information, together with the outcome of investigations which are ongoing in other member states, be they parliamentary or judiciary."

It is unclear what action Frattini could take, even though he has said the states concerned could face penalties -- including suspension of their EU voting rights -- if found to have taken part in the secret CIA prison system.

Romania joined the EU on January 1. Poland became a member in 2004.

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