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Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe Thomas Hammarberg is urging Poland, Romania and Lithuania to come clean regarding their alleged hosting of CIA “black sites” in the beginning of the 2000s.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, several countries collaborated with the CIA's counter-terrorism operations. Some, including Poland, are accused of having held detention facilities, or “black sites,” where the CIA conducted “enhanced interrogation” (including waterboarding) on detainees.

Of the three Eastern European nations, allegations of Poland's involvement have been the most specific. A European Parliament report alleged that a CIA black site operated in Poland in 2002-2003, where rendition flights brought suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah, Abd Al-Nashiri, as well as suspected 9/11 plotters Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh. Poland has never admitted to hosting the site, though it has launched an investigation.

Poland featured prominently in a 2004 “Special Review” of black sites by the CIA Inspector General, which pointed to multiple use of unauthorized interrogation techniques.

The Human Rights Commissioner, while admitting that Polish officials were not involved in handling or interrogating any detainees, declared that “authorization was obviously given at the highest political level and some assistance provided by the intelligence services.”

Mr Hammarberg urged that the results of the ongoing investigation by Poland's Prosecutor General should be put under public and judicial scrutiny without delay.

Human rights organizations such as the Helsinki Foundation and the Open Society Justice Initiative have voiced concerns about the effectiveness of the investigation.

An important roadblock is the fact that the United States has refused to provide legal assistance for the case on grounds of national security and state interest.

“At the height of the 'war on terror', Poland, Romania and Lithuania extended quite extraordinary permissions and protections to their American partners … the full truth must now be established and guarantees given that such forms of cooperation will never be repeated,” stated Mr Hammarberg.

“The purported cost to transatlantic relations of pursuing such accountability cannot be compared to the damage inflicted on our European system of human rights protection by allowing ourselves to be kept in the dark,” he added.