Within the past month, European governments and human rights bodies have launched investigations into two terrible allegations: that in Europe, secret prisons held terrorist suspects brought by America’s CIA for possibly abusive interrogations and that there were clandestine flights with CIA links criss-crossing European territory and airspace to make unauthorised transfers of terrorist suspects.

The Council of Europe’s investigation and the insistence of European foreign ministers that Washington clarify the reports about secret prisons come amid suspicions of an embarrassing (perhaps criminal) collaboration by some European security officials with the darker side of the war on terror. Franco Frattini, the European Union justice commissioner, has threatened complicit states with suspension of voting rights in the EU’s Council of Ministers. Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, visits Europe this week reportedly to reject requests for information and unilaterally claim new rules.