a system of 'relocation' or 'outsourcing of torture'," Marty said in his initial report into the allegations for the 46-nation Council, based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.

He said it had been proved that "individuals have been abducted, deprived of their liberty and transported to different destinations in Europe, to be handed over to countries in which they have suffered degrading treatment and torture."

MORE THAN 100 PEOPLE

Marty estimated that more than 100 people had been involved in "renditions" -- delivering prisoners to jails in third countries, where they may have been mistreated or tortured.

"It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware," he added.

But Marty said there was no firm evidence of detention centers in Europe similar to the one operatedby the United States at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The U.S. government has neither denied nor confirmed the reports of secret detention centers, first made in the Washington Post newspaper in November.

The allegations have named Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria as hosts to secret detention centers. No country has acknowledged playing any active role in the network.

Earlier this month, Marty said European states had deliberately turned a blind eye to the "dirty work" that had gone on and were complicit in illegal CIA activities during the war on terrorism.

The allegations followed widespread anger in Europe about the U.S. treatment of prisoners in Iraq and detainees at Guantanamo Bay, where hundreds of people judged by the U.S. military to be illegal combatants are held without charge.

There was no