European governments "turned a blind eye" to the illegal transportation of alleged terrorists through their countries to face possible torture, a hard-hitting European parliament report concluded yesterday.

After a heated debate, the Strasbourg assembly voted to "condemn extraordinary rendition as an illegal instrument used by the US in the fight against terrorism [and] condemn the acceptance and concealing of the practice . . . by the secret services and governmental authorities of certain European countries". It said the innocent victims, such as Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen wrongly sent to the detention centre at Guantánamo Bay, should be compensated.