ALLEGATIONS that the CIA has been illegally detaining terror suspects on European soil are to be investigated by a European Parliament committee. The move comes as a report issued yesterday accused the Bush Administration of employing a deliberate strategy of torture.

The 46 members of the EU committee have been given a wide-ranging remit and will be able to call any witnesses that they believe can shed light on whether US intelligence agencies have been flouting basic human rights and EU/US extradition agreements.

The investigation could lead to serious tensions between Washington and Brussels. It is also potentially embarrassing for existing and future European Union members such as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, which have been accused of allowing their territories to be used as a base to interrogate terrorist suspects or as a transit point to move them elsewhere.

The announcement of the new EU investigation came as the New York-based Human Rights Watch issued a scathing indictment of the Bush Administration’s prosecution of the War on Terror, accusing Washington of using torture and abuse as a deliberate tool.

“In 2005 it became disturbingly clear that the abuse of detainees had become a deliberate, central part of the Bush Administration’s strategy of interrogating training suspects,” the report said.

It cited Britain in particular as being complicit in torture by sending terror suspects to governments with poor human rights records. It also chastised the EU for subordinating human rights in its relationships with others deemed useful in fighting terrorism, including Russia and Saudi Arabia.

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