AL QUDS, Oct 13: The US Central Intelligence Agency is holding top Al Qaeda suspects in a secret Jordanian jail where they are subjected to interrogation methods banned in the United States, an Israeli newspaper said on Wednesday.

But a Jordanian security official dismissed as "totally baseless" the story in the Haaretz daily, which attributed its information to international intelligence sources. A CIA official in Washington declined to comment.

The newspaper said at least 11 men held incommunicado in Jordan include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the hijacked airliner attacks on New York and Washington, and Hambali, accused of being Al Qaeda's ally in southeast Asia.

"Their detention outside the US enables CIA interrogators to apply interrogation methods banned by US law and to do so in a country where cooperation with Americans is particularly close, thereby reducing the danger of leaks," the newspaper said.

But the Jordanian official, who declined to be named, said: "The allegations that surface every now and then that the US runs secret detention centres in the kingdom are totally baseless and seek to undermine the country's favourable human rights image abroad."

International human rights groups have accused the United States of circumventing guidelines on interrogation by shipping Al Qaeda suspects to allied states where such legal scrutiny is lacking.

Washington insists its interrogators operate within the law. US officials say incommunicado detentions in secret locations are essential for security and that many suspects held have provided valuable intelligence that has foiled planned attacks.

Jordan is seen as a key ally in the US-led war on terror. In "Rumsfeld's War", a book drawing on declassified Pentagon documents, Washington Times correspondent Rowan Scarborough said Jordanian interrogators had helped US counterparts in handling Al Qaeda suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"US interrogators are known to threaten some detainees with shipping them off to Jordan if they don't cooperate," Scarborough said. "Like other Middle Eastern countries, Jordan uses physical means to coerce confessions and vital intelligence information." -AFP