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Polish prosecutors are considering bringing charges of war crimes against top government officials who held office between 2002 and 2005, Gazeta Wyborcza reported Wednesday. The charges would concern secret prisons in Poland where the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was purported to have held and tortured prisoners.

The existence of the prisons in Poland was first alleged by Human Rights Watch and reported by the Washington Post in the autumn of 2005. In response to those reports, an investigative commission set up by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe published a report saying that such secret CIA prisons for terrorists captured in Afghanistan had existed in Romania, Lithuania and Poland. However, the commission produced no hard evidence.

At that time, the Polish government denied the existence of such prisons, admitting only to having allowed planes belonging to the CIA to land at an airport in Szymany.

However, Polish prosecutors started an investigation in 2008 after discovering a secret memo of the Intelligence Agency (AW) which seemed to confirm that such a CIA-controlled prison had existed. Last week, documents were revealed to the media that showed passenger movement on and off the planes that had landed at Szymany.

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Since the State Tribunal only hears cases concerning officials holding the position of minister and upwards, potential suspects to be brought before it could include former President Aleksander Kwaśniewski and former Prime Minister Leszek Miller.

President Kwaśniewski has denied that any prisoners were ever held or tortured on Polish soil. Former Prime Minister Miller said the investigation did not involve him and refused to comment further.