Rice to visit Romania amid allegations of secret CIA prisons

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice makes a stop in Romania today amid allegations that the CIA operated a secret prison where top al-Qaida captives were interrogated in the country.

Rice was set to arrive in Bucharest late this afternoon from Germany, where she was meeting with new Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In Romania, after a greeting from former Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Nadia Comaneci, Rice is to meet President Traian Basescu and sign a defence cooperation agreement involving a Romanian air base that New York-based Human Rights Watch alleges may have housed a covert US detention facility.

Top Romanian officials and the Pentagon have denied such a prison ever existed in Romania, a staunch US ally that has sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Allegations that the CIA questioned top terror suspects at secret prisons in eastern Europe and transported captives through numerous countries’ airspace have kindled outrage across the continent and have prompted Europe’s top human-rights watchdog to investigate.