‘Mystery plane’ landing confirmed

AT midnight on an autumn night two years ago, a mystery Boeing passenger plane with seven people carrying US passports touched down at a little-used airport deep in the pine forests of northeastern Poland, officials say.

Confirmation of the mysterious arrival comes after a human rights group said evidence pointed to Szczytno-Szymany airport as a CIA transfer site for al-Qaida prisoners.

Airport officials and border guards said the plane landed at the former military base on September 22, 2003 the date Human Rights Watch said a Boeing 737 that was part of the prisoner transfer scheme was at the airport.

But authorities including the airport's former director denied knowledge of prisoner transfers.

New York-based Human Rights Watch says the US government may have used the airport for secret transfers of suspects captured in Afghanistan, citing flight logs and unnamed sources.

Polish government officials dismiss the report, and US officials have refused to confirm or deny the claims.

Human Rights Watch said it has evidence indicating the CIA transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania.

The conclusion is based on an analysis of flight logs of CIA aircraft from 2001 to 2004 obtained by the group, said Mark Garlasco, a senior military analyst with the organisation.

In Romania, aviation officials and the military denied the rights group's allegations that the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base may have been used by the CIA as a detention facility.

The United States used the base to transit troops and equipment during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.