The facts that emerged in David Miliband's statement in the House of Commons yesterday were modest when compared with some of the accusations that have been directed at the Government over its alleged complicity with an American strategy of “extraordinary rendition”. There were two occasions in October 2002 when planes each containing a single suspect landed at Diego Garcia, the British territory in the Indian Ocean that largely acts as a US military base, to refuel. In neither instance did the individuals concerned, one of whom is at Guantanamo Bay and the other of whom has since been released, leave the relevant aircraft. The US authorities should have sought UK permission to land at the time but they did not and the evidence that these flights happened emerged just last week. The Foreign Secretary has, rightly, corrected the record.

In doing so he, and the information that has now emerged, suggest credibly that there has not been an official policy of assisting rendition here nor has the United States routinely disregarded the known concerns of the British Government and pressed ahead with these expeditions regularly. This is reassuring, not least because the previous reassurances by ministers that they have not been connected with this controversial practice would have been undermined if there had been a pattern of such trips, even if they had not been sanctioned by Downing Street or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. While Mr Miliband stated that he had been promised that no other flights remotely linking Britain to extraordinary rendition in any shape or form had taken place, it is sensible for him to ask that officials check on all the various incidents that have been cited and clear them.

This affair has, nonetheless, been a needless embarrassment for him and for the Government. While Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, has agreed that administrative mistakes such as these are “unacceptable” and apologised for the inaccuracies of previous records and accounts, it is less clear what the US authorities intend to do to ensure that other allies are not exposed to the charge of providing inaccurate statements to parliaments and to citizens. As William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, accurately observed to Mr Miliband: “The delay in releasing this information and the evident absence of a request in these cases are bound to undermine public trust, to some extent, in the arrangements which we have with the United States.” It falls to Washington to introduce watertight regulations that will ensure that such a situation is not repeated.

In one sense, this is a saga that could be dismissed as being about the past, not the future. The violations of proper procedure took place some time ago. They occurred at the time when Guantanamo Bay was being filled up with detainees rather than emptied of them and when the attitude of the Bush White House towards the War on Terror was seemingly at its most gung-ho. Policy across this field is bound to change further, whether there is a President Clinton, McCain or Obama, as all of them have recognised that the United States has to be more mindful of its image in the world as it takes on terror.

The wider point, though, about the compelling need to have a culture of consulting allies that is scrupulously followed in practice transcends the argument about rendition. Extraordinary omissions will not serve any US administration well.