EUROPEAN Governments are aware that America has abducted more than 100 terrorist suspects and flown many to prisons where they were tortured by other nations, according to a report released yesterday by the Council of Europe.

The inquiry, led by Dick Marty, a Swiss Member of Parliament who made his name as a mafia prosecutor, raised pressure on EU states — and Britain in particular — to tackle the policy of "extraordinary renditions" of detainees which is allegedly carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Craig Murray, a former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and a witness in the Strasbourg inquiry, said that Britain was "deeply implicated in the entire process" of using US intelligence gained through torture.

Mr Murray, who lost his job in 2004 after denouncing rights abuses in Uzbekistan, said the British Government had decided not to question the origin of CIA "prisoner debriefings" for fear of jeopardising the flow of US intelligence to London. He knew from personal experience that the Americans "deliver people into the hands of torturers", he said.

Britain has made carefully worded denials that the Americans were allowed to use airspace or airports for the transport of terrorist suspects.

In his interim report for the 43-nation Strasbourg human rights body, Mr Marty offered no new evidence of CIA practices and said he had found nothing to confirm allegations that the CIA operated secret detention centres in Romania, Poland or other European states. The Council is pursuing its investigation with data that it has just received from the European satellite agency and Eurocontrol, the EU air traffic control authority.

There was "a great deal of evidence pointing to the existence of a system of outsourcing torture", Mr Marty’s report said. "It has been proved — and in fact never denied — that individuals have been abducted, deprived of their liberty and transported . . .to be handed over to countries in which they have suffered torture."

Mr Marty told the Council’s parliamentary assembly: "The entire continent is involved. It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware." Mr Marty denounced what he called criminal action by the US "which runs counter to the laws that prevail in all civilised countries". He challenged them to stop turning a blind eye to "gangster methods".

Mr Marty’s report came under fire from critics at the Council, whose prime function is as guardian of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Denis MacShane, a Labour MP and former Minister for Europe, said that the report had "more holes than a Swiss cheese". He added: "There is nothing new, no proof."

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