An investigation by the European Union has revealed that more than 1,000 aircraft crossed European territory flying CIA terror suspects to secret prisons since September 11, in violation of EU human rights laws.

EU ministers were today presented with the first report of an investigation which compared official flight data with the testimony of individuals who claim to have been kidnapped by American agents and flown to torture prisons in the Middle East, Asia and northern Africa.

Giovanni Claudio Fava, who drafted the report, wrote: "After 9/11, within the framework of the fight against terrorism, the violation of human and fundamental rights was not [an] isolated measure confined to a short period of time, but rather a widespread regular practice in which the majority of European countries were involved."

Data from Eurocontrol, which monitors all flights through Europe, showed that CIA planes also made numerous stopovers on European territory, in violation of an international air treaty that requires airlines to declare the route and stopovers for planes with a police mission.

"The routes for some of these flights seem to be quite suspect. ... They are rather strange routes for flights to take. It is hard to imagine ... those stopovers were simply for providing fuel," said Sr Fava.

He cited the alleged transfer of an Egyptian cleric abducted from a Milan street in 2003; a German who claimed he was transferred from Macedonia to Afghanistan, and the transfer of a Canadian citizen from New York to Syria, among other suspect flights.

Documents provided by Eurocontrol showed Khalid al-Masri, the German, was transferred to Afghanistan in 2004 by a plane that originated in Algeria and flew via Palma, Spain; Skopje, Macedonia, and Baghdad, Iraq before landing in Kabul

Mr al-Masri, who was born in Kuwait, told the European Parliament committee earlier this year he was arrested by US intelligence agents on the Macedonian border while on vacation, taken to a hotel in Skopje, and then imprisoned there for several weeks before being flown to Kabul and imprisoned for five months. He said he was flown back to Europe in May 2004 and released in Albania.

Mr Fava also noted that the same agents often showed up on flights, and called it unlikely that certain European governments, such as Italy, Bosnia and Sweden, knew nothing about CIA operations. The British Government has repeatedly said that it has no knowledge of UK airports being used in rendition flights.

The United States has not made any public comment on the allegations of secret renditions, and the official line by EU governments and senior EU officials is that there has been no irrefutable proof of such renditions.

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

Clandestine detention centers, secret stopovers in Europe en route countries where suspects could face torture, or extraordinary renditions all would breach the continent’s human rights treaties.

The parliamentary inquiry began in January following media reports that US intelligence officers interrogated al-Qaeda suspects at secret prisons in eastern Europe and transported some on secret flights that passed through Europe.

The focus of the inquiry soon changed from the presence of secret prisons in Europe to rendition flights as people who said they were abducted by US agents gave detailed accounts of transfers to what they called secret detention centres in the Middle East, Asia and northern Africa.

Few of those who testified touched upon the alleged secret prisons in Eastern Europe first reported by The Washington Post in November.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch identified Romania and Poland as possible hosts of secret US-run detention facilities, although both countries have denied involvement.

Senor Fava provided no evidence of secret CIA prisons on EU territory, saying the committee would turn its attention to alleged detention centres later and may go to Poland and Romania in September.

He said that the committee plans to travel next month to Washington to discuss the allegations with members of Congress and White House officials.

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