Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, appeared to announce a shift in America's policy on the interrogation of terrorist suspects today when she said that US interrogators were barred from using cruel or degrading practices wherever in the world they were.

The Bush administration has previously insisted that the ban on cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment under the UN Convention against Torture did not apply to Americans working overseas.

In practice, that meant that CIA employees could use methods in overseas prisons that would not be allowed in the United States - a loophole seen by human rights groups as a carte blanche for cruelty amounting to torture.

Reacting to an international uproar over America's "extraordinary rendition" of suspects to countries such as Afghanistan, and claims that secret CIA prisons have been set up in Romania and Poland, Dr Rice robustly defended the policy in a defiant statement made before this week's trip to Europe. "Renditions take terrorists out of action and save lives," she declared.

But on a visit to Ukraine today, the Secretary of State denied that American personnel abroad worked under different rules from those back home.

"As a matter of US policy, the United States’ obligations under the CAT (Convention against Torture), which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, those obligations extend to US personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States," she said.

Her remarks followed strong and sustained criticism in Europe and the US Congress over interrogation techniques such as waterboarding - in which prisoners are strapped to a plank and dumped in water.

But they appeared to come as a surprise to journalists accompanying Dr Rice. The Associated Press reported that she had been seeking to "clarify" American policy. Reuters quoted US officials as saying that her comments marked a clear shift in policy towards a more rigid application of the torture convention.

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