European Report Details Flights By CIA Aircraft

In November 2005, The Washington Post first reported the presence of clandestine CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. The Post withheld the exact locations at the request of the White House, which argued that divulging such details could jeopardize active counterterrorism operations and subject the host countries to retaliation from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers.

In September, President Bush acknowledged the existence of the CIA's overseas prison network for the first time. He said that 14 inmates had been transferred to the U.S. Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay and that the "black sites" had been emptied, although he did not rule out using them again.

No European country has admitted allowing the CIA to run secret prisons on its territory. But the parliamentary committee said it had obtained records describing an "informal" Dec. 7, 2005, meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union and NATO "confirming that member states had knowledge" of the secret prisons. The meeting was attended by Rice and other U.S. officials, according to the report.

"The decision has been to keep mum and shroud decisions in secrecy," said Giovanni Claudio Fava, an Italian member of the European Parliament who led the investigation. "Many of our governments have cooperated actively and passively."

The committee report also cited evidence that the CIA may have operated a prison in Romania and said it "cannot exclude," based on testimony by Romanian officials, "the possibility that US secret services have operated in Romania on a clandestine basis."

The panel said it "expresses serious concern" about 21 stopovers by CIA-operated aircraft landing in Romania, including a crash landing by a Gulfstream jet in Bucharest on Dec. 6, 2004.

Although no one was reported injured, seven passengers on board the flight "disappeared" after the accident, and Romanian air transport investigators never learned their identities, according to the report. The plane had started its journey at Bagram air base, the site of a U.S. prison in Afghanistan.

Researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.