EU calls for investigations into CIA prisons in Europe

(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission on Friday called on EU member states accused of running secret prisons for the CIA to conduct impartial investigations "as quickly as possible".

European Commission spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing stressed the need "for the member states concerned to conduct impartial investigations to establish the truth."

"Indeed, such investigations should be fully carried out as quickly as possible in order to establish responsibility and for the victims to obtain compensation," he told reporters in Brussels.

In a report Friday, the Council of Europe said the CIA ran secret prisons in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2005 to interrogate terror suspects under a programme authorized by the two countries' presidents.

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, said the report by Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty.

Marty also suggested that NATO and the United States reached a secret deal in 2001 allowing the Central Intelligence Agency to run the covert prisons.

Warsaw and Bucharest swiftly denied the accusations.

However Liberal Democrat members of a European parliamentary committee that studied the issue welcomed Marty's report.

Committee vice-president Sarah Ludford, a British MEP, said: "We must expose the secret agreements between US intelligence services and some European governments."

"These illegal, undemocratic and unacceptable actions must be accounted for and punished."

Roscam Abbing said that the European Commission -- the executive arm of the European Union -- would study their report carefully before deciding whether to take any action against the member states involved.

"This is a very serious matter with very, very serious and strong allegations," he said. "We intend to discuss the matter further."

In 2005 EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said that the states concerned could face penalties -- including suspension of EU voting rights -- if found to have taken part in the secret CIA prison system.

Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and Romania this year. Both also belong to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Marty also accused Germany and Italy of obstructing investigations into the covert programme "by invoking the concept of 'state secret'."