STRASBOURG, Nov 8: The Council of Europe will investigate claims that the CIA is operating secret prisons on European soil, the pan-European body said on Tuesday. The chairman of the council’s legal affairs committee, Dick Marty, will head the inquiry, ‘with a view to a possible urgent debate’ at the next standing committee meeting in Bucharest on November 25.

The committee also authorized Marty ‘to visit certain member states if need be’ and reminded those states that a Council of Europe resolution obliged them ‘to ensure that their territory and facilities are not used in connection with practices of secret detention’.

The president of the council’s Parliamentary Assembly Rene van der Linden, had told member states last week that they were legally bound to respect clauses in the European Convention of Human Rights relating to the prevention of torture.—AFP