US Senate demands 'CIA prisons' report

WASHINGTON - The US Senate has demanded a classified account of whether the CIA was running a secret prison system.

The call was made following a newspaper report of such a prison network abroad, including facilities in Eastern Europe, that added to concerns in America and overseas about the fate of those held in the US-declared war on terrorism.

Senators also moved to deny detainees at the US Guantanamo Bay prison the right to challenge their detentions with habeas corpus petitions in federal court, a step critics said could undermine efforts to secure their humane treatment.

Politicians said they could revisit the Guantanamo issue next week when they hope to complete a US$492 billion ($724 billion) package of defence and nuclear weapons programmes.

The White House has threatened to veto the legislation because of an attached measure requiring humane treatment of terrorism suspects and setting rules for their interrogation.

The Senate voted 82-9 for director of National Intelligence John Negroponte to provide Congress' intelligence committees with a classified "full accounting" on any clandestine prison or detention facility run by the US government at any location where terrorism suspects were being held.

The Washington Post reported last week that the CIA had been holding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at secret facilities in Eastern Europe, part of a global covert prison system established after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

- REUTERS