He confirmed Meshal was still in Ethiopian custody pending a hearing on his status.
An FBI memo read to AP by a US official in Washington, who insisted on anonymity, quoted an agent who interrogated Meshal as saying the agent was "disgusted" by Meshal's deportation to Somalia by Kenya.
The unidentified agent said he was told by US consular staff that the deportation was illegal.
Meshal was also arrested fleeing Somalia.
A Kenyan police report of Meshal's arrest obtained by AP says he was carrying an assault rifle and had crossed into Kenya with armed Arab men who were trying to avoid capture.
Meshal's parents insist he is innocent and called on the US government to win his release.
"My son's only crime is that he's a Muslim, an American Muslim," his father, Mohamed Meshal, said from the family's home in Tinton Falls, New Jersey.
"Clearly the US government interrogated him, and threatened him with torture according to the accounts that we've seen," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law who has been assisting the family.
Representative Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey, wrote to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday to demand Meshal's immediate release.
US officials, who agreed to discuss the detentions only if not quoted by name because of the information's sensitivity, said Ethiopia had allowed access to US agencies, including the CIA and FBI, but the agencies played no role in arrests, transport or deportation.
One official said it would have been irresponsible to pass up an opportunity to learn more about terrorist operations.
Kolko, the FBI spokesman, also said the detainees were never in FBI or US government custody.
"While in custody of the foreign government, the FBI was granted limited access to interview certain individuals of interest," he told AP.
"We do not support or participate in any system that illegally detains foreign fighters or terror suspects, including women and children," he said.
Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, declined to discuss details of any such interviews. He said, however: "To fight terror, the CIA acts boldly and lawfully, alone and with partners, just as the American people expect us to."
One of the US officials said the FBI has had access in Ethiopia to several dozen individuals -- fewer than 100 -- as part of its investigations.
The official said the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed hundreds are a major focus of the agents' work.
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