European investigators looking into claims of secret CIA prisons will release an interim report today saying US agents illegally transported and held terrorist suspects on the continent, the leader of the inquiry says.

US policies in the war on terror are contravening international laws on human rights, a top European investigator says.

AN ITALIAN judge has issued European arrest warrants for 22 purported CIA operatives in connection with the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric from a Milan street in 2003.