This year, the Bush administration’s extension of executive power into uncharted territory has intensified what one might term the diplomatic crisis facing the US. The European tour of Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state – with its accompanying litany of charges of torture, kidnapping and secret prisons – brought this to the fore.

Since 1945 Europe has created an unprecedented regime of rights that are defensible in supranational courts and monitored by international bodies such as the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Resting upon a mutual pooling of national sovereignty, this rights regime is the product of vivid memories of Nazi occupation and secret police brutality. And it is because they threaten to undermine this achievement that the case of Khaled al-Masri, a German of Lebanese descent who was abducted two years ago by the Central Intelligence Agency, and other alleged instances of CIA malfeasance, have provoked such deep unease.