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MPs, rights groups seek inquest into CIA `torture flights'

British members of parliament (MPs) and human rights groups on Sunday demanded an independent inquiry into the use of UK territory by CIA "torture flights" as fresh questions emerged over the British government's handling of the issue.

Ministers are coming under growing pressure as officials made it clear they still could not be certain of the extent to which US aircraft made use of British facilities when taking alleged terrorists to prisons where they were likely to be subjected to inhuman treatment.

Last month, Britsish Foreign Secretary David Miliband apologized to MPs, admitting that contrary to "earlier explicit assurances" two flights had landed at Diego Garcia, the British Indian Ocean territory where the US has a large airbase. He said the flights had refueled there and each had had a single detainee on board who did not leave the aircraft.

British and US officials have refused to give details about the two detainees other than that one was in Guantanamo Bay and the other had been released. Miliband said he had asked his officials for a list of all flights on which rendition had been alleged.

British officials said on Sunday they were "working behind the scenes" in an attempt to get more information from the US. It is understood that Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch Brown has spoken to Manfred Novak, the UN's special investigator on torture, about the alleged use of Diego Garcia as a detention center to hold US suspects.

Novak said he had credible evidence from sources he could not reveal that detainees were held on the island between 2002 and 2003. British officials say they have no evidence of this. Some representatives of human rights groups who met British foreign office officials suggested records of the CIA flights may have been destroyed.

Flight plan records show that one of the aircraft, registered N379P, flew in September 2002 from Diego Garcia to Morocco. From there it flew to Portugal and then to Kabul. Passenger names have been blacked out.
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