THE Bush Administration all but acknowledged last night that it runs a network of secret and unaccountable prisons in foreign countries where it hides and interrogates terror suspects.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the US has a global network of “black sites” with the co-operation of countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Afghanistan, and at least one Eastern European nation. Stephen Hadley, Mr Bush’s National Security Adviser, refused to deny the accusation.

Instead, he said: “The fact they are secret — assuming there are such sites — some people say that the test of your principles are what you do when no one’s looking. The President has insisted that whether it is in the public or in private, the same principles will apply.”

He added: “The President has been very clear . . . that the United States will not torture, the United States will conduct its activities in compliance with law and international obligations. While we have to do what is necessary to defend the country against terrorist attacks, the President has been very clear that we have to do that in way that is consistent with our values.”

The Washington Post said one of the sites was a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, but agreed not to identify the country involved.

Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria rushed to issue denials of their involvement.

But Frantisek Bublan, the Czech Interior Minister, said last night that the US had approached his Government a month ago about holding suspects on Czech territory, but Prague had refused.

Human rights groups point at Poland and Romania as two eastern European countries that have taken in America’s “ghost detainees”. They also claimed that the US was running out of countries willing to host its terror suspects.

The secret facilities depend on the co-operation of foreign intelligence services, and on their existence being kept completely secret from all but a tiny handful of top officials.

Tom Malinowski, the director of Human Rights Watch, told The Times that his investigators had tracked CIA aircraft transferring detainees from Afghanistan to airfields in Eastern Europe that are closed to the public and press, including two in Poland and Romania.

Mr Malinowski said that Human Rights Watch was “90 per cent certain” the CIA used Szymany airport in Poland.

“This is an obscure, rural airport which is very close to a Polish intelligence facility,” Mr Malinowski said.

He said the second major eastern European site was the Mihail-Kogalniceanu military airbase in Romania.

The Post’s report came at a time of growing concern on Capitol Hill and within factions of the Pentagon over the CIA’s highly secret anti-terror operations and the way it interrogates prisoners. There have been growing calls for more transparency after the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and evidence of abuse in other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jimmy Carter, the former Democrat President, accused the Bush Administration of degrading moral standards underpinning decades of US foreign policy. “In the last five years there has been a profound and radical change in the basic policies or moral values of our country,” he said.

In a remarkably strong rebuff to the White House last month, the Senate voted 90-9, in favour of legislation introduced by the Republican senator John McCain to ban “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of any detainee. Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, is insisting that the CIA be exempted from the legislation.

GHOST PRISONERS

Abu Zubaydah Palestinian-born al-Qaeda operational commander, mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Arrested in Pakistan, 2002, interrogated in Afghanistan and is said to have given information that foiled big terror attacks

Mustafa al-Hawsawi 36-year-old Saudi-born computer expert known as Osama bin Laden’s banker. Arrested in Pakistan, 2003. Said to have told agents about al-Qaeda funding and betrayed terrorists sent to the West. Moved from a secret camp in Afghanistan to Diego Garcia and is believed to have been held on a US warship for a time

Ibn al-Shaikh al-Libi Ran al-Qaeda’s biggest training camp in Afghanistan. Arrested fleeing the Tora Bora cave complex as bin Laden made his escape in 2001

Ramzi Binalshibh A link man for September 11 hijackers. Arrested in Karachi on September 11

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Thousands of Tamils dying in 'welfare camp'
• Jackson 'rebuilt his nose before he died'
• Renewed Iran protests crushed by militia