EU Lawmakers Allege Numerous CIA Flights

Italian lawmaker Giovanni Claudio Fava addresses the media at the European Parliament in Brussels, Wednesday, April 26, 2006. European Parliament investigators said Wednesday data gathered from the EU air safety organization show there have been more than 1,000 undeclared CIA flights over European territory since 2001. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe) (Yves Logghe - AP)

He accused the CIA of breaching the Chicago Convention, an international treaty governing air traffic. It requires aircraft used in military, customs and police operations to seek special authorization to land in signatory states.

U.S. officials previously said that as of late December, some 100 to 150 people had been seized in "rendition" operations involving detaining terror suspects in one country and flying them to their home country or another where they were wanted for a crime or questioning.

The officials, who agreed to discuss the operations only if not quoted by name, said the action was reserved for people considered by the CIA to be the most serious terror suspects. But they conceded mistakes had been made and were being investigated by the CIA's inspector general.

Fava cited as one example of "extraordinary rendition" the case of an Egyptian cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, who allegedly was abducted by U.S. agents on a street in Milan, Italy, in 2003 and returned to his homeland, where he says he was tortured.

Another case involved German citizen Khalid al-Masri. Documents provided by Eurocontrol indicated he was taken to Afghanistan in 2004 by a plane that originated in Algeria and flew via Palma de Mallorca, Spain; Skopje, Macedonia; and Baghdad, Iraq.

Al-Masri, who was born in Kuwait, told the committee that he was arrested by U.S. agents on the Macedonian border while on vacation. He said he was kept at a hotel in Skopje for several weeks before being flown to Afghanistan and jailed for five months. He said he was flown back to Europe in May 2004 and released in Albania.

Fava said the bulk of the clandestine CIA flights passed through Germany and Spain, where the United States has several air bases. Neither government had any comment.

The European Union also declined to address the committee's preliminary report.

"We have no comment. We will wait for the investigation to finish," said Friso Roscam Abbing, spokesman for EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini.