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Rice's European trip dogged by questions of CIA prisons

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Germany tomorrow to start a four-country tour expected to be dogged by questions about reports of secret CIA prison camps and "torture flights."

Rice has promised to provide responses to European countries increasingly concerned that airports on their soil have been used for flights allegedly carrying undeclared detainees in the US-led "war on terror."

The German government said on Friday that it was expecting an explanation from Rice, but not while she is in Berlin for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday.

"We are not putting the US government under pressure of time," government spokesman Thomas Steg said. "It does not matter whether it [an explanation] comes on Tuesday or later."

The US this week acknowledged the European concerns, calling them "legitimate questions" that deserved a response.

Germany is home to the largest US airbase in Europe, Ramstein, and reports said as many as 80 flights which were possibly carrying terror suspects landed or took off from airports in the country.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier adopted a cautious approach to the reports, saying he can only deal in facts, not speculation.

The EU has threatened sanctions against any of its member states found to have been operating the secret prisons, or allowing their territory to be used for the transport of the phantom detainees.

The claims have emerged since early last month, when the Washington Post newspaper reported that "black site" prisons were, or had been, set up in eight countries including Thailand, Afghanistan and "several democracies in Eastern Europe" since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

A host of European countries are examining flight reports, including suspect flights landing in or flying over Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

France became the latest country drawn into the controversy when Le Figaro newspaper reported that aircraft hired by the CIA, possibly to transport Muslim prisoners, had made at least two stopovers in the country, in 2002 and this year.
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