Baltic News Service informed that the Council of Europe secretary general asked Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs if Vilnius could give all available information to the Council of Europe regarding the allegation of possible secret CIA prisons, or so called ‘black sites’ in Lithuania.

According to BNS the letter was sent to Lithuania a month ago and signed by Thorbjørn Jagland.  Mr Jagland said that his predecessor had already asked for information on any involvement of public figures, by action or omission, in the deprivation of liberty of transport of detainees.  The secretary also informed that this information relevant to an inquiry on CIA detention centres in Europe launched back in November 2005.

BNS quoted the letter in which Mr Jagland addresses to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, “I should be grateful if you could provide me with any information available at this stage which could be useful for the purposes of the inquiry”.

On 14 January the Lithuania Member of European Parliament Leonidas Donskis confirmed that the European Parliament is also planning to bring the allegations of the CIA prisons in Lithuania.  “I’ve no doubt that the European Parliament will bring this up. Since Lithuania ran the probe itself, questions about it are to be expected in the European Union,” the MEP said to BNS.

The Parliamentarian Committee on State Security and National Defence conducted a probe into the allegations of secret CIA prisons in Lithuania.  It concluded that even though there were preconditions for the terrorist suspects to be held in Lithuania it could not find any proof of it.

Today, the Parliament is holding a second hearing on the CIA prisons probe conclusions.  The Social Democrat faction suggested to include an article which would state that the Humans Rights, in regards to secret CIA prisons, were not breach on the Lithuanian soil.