'War on terror' tactics to cast cloud on Rice tour

Allegations that the United States has committed abuses in Europe while waging its "war on terror" will cloud this week's visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but her hosts have little appetite for forcing the issue with Washington.

European officials seem satisfied, for now, that the United States has promised a formal response to press reports the CIA ran secret jails in Eastern Europe and covertly flew terrorist suspects through airports and bases across the continent.

They are loath to pick new quarrels with Washington and risk souring transatlantic ties which are only gradually recovering from a deep rift over the US-led invasion of Iraq. They may also be nervous about what further investigation could uncover. Some European Union governments face awkward and persistent suggestions that they may have known and approved of secret US operations taking place on their soil.

"If (EU) member or candidate states actively contributed to, or connived in, illegal transports and torture, or illegal prisons on their territory, that must be investigated and the necessary consequences drawn," said Martin Schulz, head of the Socialist group in the European Parliament.

"There's active acceptance, and there's acquiescence. Neither of those are acceptable," he said.

US officials have signalled that Ms Rice, on a trip to Berlin, Bucharest, Kiev and Brussels, will urge the Europeans to back off over the issue.

They say she will remind them that they have cooperated in US operations and tell them to do more to win over their publics and deflect criticism directed at the US.

Highlighting the sensitivities of such cases for European governments, Italy was forced last week to issue a fresh denial that the government knew in advance of CIA plans to abduct a radical Islamic cleric on the streets of Milan in 2003 and fly him via Germany to Egypt, where he later said he was tortured.