Council of Europe planning to use satellite images in prisons probe

December 8, 2005

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Europe's leading human rights watchdog group, plans to use satellite images and flight logs as part of its investigation into claims that the United States maintains secret prisons in Europe.

The European Union (EU) has granted PACE access to EU archived satellite images and flight logs to help determine whether aircraft linked with CIA secret detention centers have been using European airspace.

According to Human Rights Watch, a humanitarian rights group based in New York, "CIA airplanes traveling from Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004 made direct flights to remote airfields in Poland and Romania."