In a resolution backed by all the parliament's main political groups bar the center-right European People's Party, EU legislators agreed to set up a temporary committee of inquiry that will begin work in January.

Its aim will be to find out whether the CIA has been involved in the extraordinary rendition of "ghost detainees" to third countries without access to legal counsel and to judge whether alleged terrorists have been subjected to cruel treatment or torture. It will also seek to establish whether such practices are legal on European territory and whether EU governments were involved in the "illegal deprivation of liberty of individuals."

The European Parliament's resolution recalls that Article 7 of the EU treaty holds out the possibility of suspending a member state's voting rights if it is found to have violated fundamental human rights.

"We are not playing games here," Baroness Sarah Ludford, a Liberal lawmaker from Britain, told United Press International. "If illegal kidnapping, detention without legal counsel and torture is not a basis for invoking Article 7, then what is?"

Ahead of the vote, the chair of the EU assembly's Civil Liberties Committee, Jean-Marie Cavada, told lawmakers that recent events reminded him of the Watergate case in the United States. "We don't know yet if this has become an EU issue but we cannot be the last ones to discover if something serious happened. We are here to seek the truth and not to wait for someone to provide it for us."

After a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Brussels last week, EU and NATO foreign ministers expressed their satisfaction at U.S. government assurances that no prisoners had been tortured or sent to countries where they could be tortured.

However, few other politicians or political bodies in Europe are convinced of Washington's innocence.

On Tuesday, a preliminary report by the Council of Europe, a Strasbourg-based human rights body, slammed the C.I.A for holding illegal prisoners on European territory without trial.

On Wednesday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told an emergency parliamentary debate in Berlin that the U.S administration "appears to be increasingly aware that it cannot deal lightly with the concerns of its European partners."

Speaking to parliament before the vote, EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini warned that there was no "smoking gun" confirming the allegations that had been made. "Finding out the truth means getting evidence. No accusations can be considered founded without evidence."

However, many Euro-deputies questioned the former Italian foreign minister's passive approach to the issue. Italian leftist lawmaker Vittorio Agnoletto said Frattini's statement reminded him of the "three monkeys -- hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing."

Members of the European Parliament insisted they had not decided to set up the temporary committee to pre-judge, grandstand or indulge in America bashing. "We want to know the truth, nothing more than the truth," said Socialist Group Vice-President Hannes Swoboda. "If we do this then we are genuinely battling against terrorism but also against torture."

But the text of the resolution makes it abundantly clear that parliamentarians already have grave doubts about the United States' conduct in the war on terrorism.

The EU assembly says it is "worried that in the context of the fight against international terrorism that has been conducted since 9-11, fundamental European and international rights have apparently been violated."

The resolution also expresses parliament's "deep concern at the allegations concerning the role of the CIA in the illegal kidnapping, transportation, secret detention and torture of terrorist suspects."

Membership of the temporary committee will be decided next month and the probe is expected to last 3-4 months. It is likely to mirror a 2000-2001 parliamentary inquiry into the Echelon global interception system operated by the United States and a handful of European states.

EU lawmakers stressed that the committee will have fewer powers than the Council of Europe investigation. It will be able to request, not summon, witnesses and its recommendations will not be legally binding.

However, few doubt the inquiry has the potential to further sour transatlantic relations in the first half of 2006 and, if the most lurid allegations are found to be true, could lead to serious repercussions for European governments.

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