Government 'ignored' rendition flights

Britain yesterday dismissed a European Parliament report claiming that British and other European governments colluded with illegal, secret CIA abductions of terror suspects in the US war on terror.

A report approved by Euro MPs in Strasbourg yesterday said more than 1,000 covert flights operated by the CIA had flown into European airspace or stopped over at European airports between the end of 2001 and 2005.

A special committee of MEPs spent a year investigating claims of "extraordinary rendition" in which the CIA transports terrorism suspects for interrogation, sometimes returning them to countries that use torture. The legally non-binding report found that national governments "turned a blind eye" to the flights.

MEPs pointed up 170 stopovers made by CIA-operated aircraft at British airports. Britain says it has "no evidence that the flights were involved in rendition".

The Foreign Office said it had found "no evidence of detainees being rendered through the UK or overseas territories since 1997".