Britain finds no requests for CIA flights
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-13 09:16

The British government has not received any requests from the United States to allow CIA flights carrying prisoners to stop in Britain, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Monday.

News reports and the civil liberties group Liberty have claimed that 200 or more prisoner flights may have passed through British airports. The United States calls its practice of moving prisoners between countries "extraordinary rendition."

"Careful research has been unable to identify any occasion ... when we have received a request for permission by the United States for a rendition through the United Kingdom territory or airspace," Straw told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"Our people have checked through all the detail of the Liberty suggestions. They have found no records which corroborate either the details of what Liberty say and no papers relating to any policy considerations of what Liberty say."

Meanwhile, European Union Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini said he had asked for flight logs and satellite images to help the Council of Europe's investigation into allegations of CIA secret prisons and flights on European territory.

A plane suspected of being used by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) departing from Palma de Mallorca airport, Mallorca, Spain. [AFP/file]

Frattini said he had asked EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot to arrange for log books archived by the Brussels-based air safety organization Eurocontrol to be made available to Dick Marty, the Swiss senator investigating the allegations on behalf of the human rights watchdog.

Frattini also has asked External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner to help secure satellite images of air bases in northeastern Poland and eastern Romania from the EU's main satellite center in Torrejon de Ardoz, Spain.

But he reiterated that there is no clear evidence of any secret detention centers on European soil, and that all EU member states have, through various government officials, denied any involvement.

Liberty last week cited a report in The Guardian newspaper in September that said 11 British airports and air bases allowed jets operated or chartered by the CIA to stop over on 210 occasions since 2001.

Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrat Party, said he accepted that Straw's comments were made in good faith.

"But the truth is that the British authorities simply don't know whether 'extraordinary rendition' is taking place using British airfields," Campbell said.

"The sooner we have a system of inspection, the better."

Straw, however, said there was a "pretty clear picture" that no suspects were brought through Britain.

"The practice of the United States government has in the past been to seek permission," he said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had given assurances that flights were not occurring through Britain without permission.

"We have checked the records as carefully as we can and I believe the answer we have given from the records suggest that there have been no such flights through United Kingdom territory," Straw said.

"We will continue to look at the evidence that Liberty and others have provided and to carry on making those checks."