EU quizzes US on secret prisons

European politicians today demanded to know the exact locations of the secret prisons that the US president has revealed the CIA operated overseas to interrogate terror suspects.

Critics claim the system approved of torture, and a Swiss senator today called George Bush’s admission that the secret detention centres existed “just one piece of the truth”.

Dick Marty, who heads the Council of Europe’s investigation into whether European governments collaborated in the secret prison programme, said: “There is more, much more, to be revealed.”

“I have always been certain that these prisons existed, so I am not surprised,” Mr Marty said.

The international Red Cross welcomed the transfer of high-level terror suspects to the US military prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said it planned to check on them “very soon”, but reiterated its desire to visit all detainees in the US war on terror wherever they may be held.

Critics said Mr Bush’s acknowledgement of the programme and justification of tough interrogation measures vindicated the worst fears that Washington had gone too far in the pursuit of terror suspects.

Mr Bush seemed to be trying to justify “impunity legislation” that would allow the CIA to continue to operate the centres and use “alternative techniques” of interrogation, said Robert Freer, of Amnesty International.

He said Mr Bush didn’t rule out cruel, degrading and inhuman prisoner treatment even though he asserted: “The United States does not torture.”

The president said the CIA’s “procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution and our treaty obligations. The US department of justice reviewed the authorised methods extensively, and determined them to be lawful.”

Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said there remained the possibility of the CIA using practices which are deemed torture under international law, such as mock drownings.

Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who pulled his country’s troops from Iraq after he came to office in 2004, said: “The fight against terrorism can only be done through democracy and respect for the law. It is not compatible with the existence of secret prisons.”

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who met with Zapatero in Madrid today, was more reserved, but said: “I cannot believe that there can be a trade between the effective fight against terrorism and protection of civil liberties.

"If as individuals we are asked to give up our freedom, our liberties, our human rights, as protection against terrorism, do we in the end have protection?”

Mr Marty said earlier this year that 14 European nations colluded with US intelligence in a “spider’s web” of human rights abuses to help the CIA spirit terror suspects to illegal detention facilities. His claims triggered a wave of angry denials, including from the US.

Mr Marty said he thought the timing of Mr Bush’s admission was politically motivated. “It probably has to do with the fact that the elections are coming up in the United States,” he said, referring to the US mid-term congressional elections scheduled in November.

Graham Watson, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament, said the revelation by Bush would “bring a new interest and momentum” to the work of the parliament’s separate investigation.

“It has refused to be silenced by the blanket denials from governments and authorities that they were complicit in allowing illegal practices on their territory,” Mr Watson said. “If they were not aware, the matter is even more serious.”

Bush got strong support from Australia, a staunch supporter of his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and long detentions without trial of terrorist suspects, but much of the global response was critical of Bush’s “limited disclosures” to justify the secret prisons.

But some Muslim politicians criticised Mr Bush’s secret prison programme and the types of interrogation techniques used on detainees.

Asma Jehangir, a senior member of Pakistan’s human rights commission, demanded Washington end the programme immediately and apologise for ever bringing it into existence.

“They have to admit that what they did was wrong,” said Ms Jehangir, who heads a UN panel that recently issued a scathing report about the detention of suspects at Guantanamo.

“They cannot justify it in the name of terrorism and frightening people.”