The escape of two terror suspects under control orders is as embarrassing to the Home Office as it is bewildering to the public. The men cannot be named, though one is understood to be an Iraqi and the other a Briton of Pakistani origin. The Government has refused to say why they are dangerous, or how or when they escaped, and will not give details that could alert the public, even though officials reportedly regard the Iraqi as a serious risk. The public has not been told whether police are seeking the men, whether the Home Office is to carry out a review or what is being done to ensure effective surveillance of the other former internees in Belmarsh prison who are also subject to control orders.

The affair has underlined the murky legal status of control orders and the unsatisfactory working of these emergency measures. It has strengthened both the demand by Tony McNulty, the Policing and Security Minister, for a stronger version of measures that he admitted were a “second-best option” and the denunciation by civil liberties campaigners of the current orders as a “farce”. The Conservative call for John Reid, the Home Secretary, to make a statement to MPs is fully justified.

Some of the absurdities of the case stem from their hasty and ill-considered origins. The orders were introduced in March last year to replace the emergency laws brought in after the 9/11 attacks that allowed the Government to lock up indefinitely without charge or trial a number of foreign nationals, suspected of involvement in terrorism. Those measures were ruled illegal by the Lords in December 2004. But since the suspects could not be deported, as there was a risk of torture or death in their home countries, the Government released them under conditions of strict curfew. Those conditions were themselves successfully challenged in June, when a judge ruled that placing men under house arrest for 18 hours a day was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The curfew was reduced to 14 hours a day.

Since none of the 15 suspects has been charged, the Government has insisted that they cannot be named. And it is this insistence on anonymity that has greatly confused the issue. Lawyers argue that naming the men or giving any details of them would brand them as guilty. The Government therefore did not announce that they had escaped. Breaching a control order is in itself a crime. But although they are now fugitives from justice, it will still not name them. This certainly does not make it any easier to recapture them.

The obsession with anonymity is meant to protect the suspects’ human rights and to ensure that any future trial is not prejudiced. Judges insist that there should be no public discussion of this or of the charges and substance of other current terror trials — many mired in delays and legal wrangling — lest this prejudice juries. The principle is admirable; the practice is absurd. Details of the control order cases are freely available on the internet. So too is most of the information banned from publication about other terrorist suspects. Ignorance may be no excuse, but this is an excuse for ignorance.

It is a basic principle of British law that justice should be seen to be done. This has become a casualty of terrorism. The only way out, ultimately, is to admit wiretapping evidence in court and to charge terrorist suspects or deport them.