EU: Amnesty International has criticised EU member states for their failure to take account of basic human rights in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.
Ireland is one of the countries coming in for specific criticism for allowing Shannon airport to be used by the US as it carries out "extraordinary renditions" - transferring people involuntarily across borders without due process and often in secret.
The organisation said it had received reports "of a US-leased jet, which appeared to have been used for such purposes, being sighted at Shannon airport . . . on several occasions".
Frankfurt and Mallorca airports are also "known stop-off points for unmarked CIA jets carrying out irregular renditions".
The report takes the EU to task for paying "no more than lip service to the question of protection of human rights in the context of the fight against terrorism".
The Amnesty report is in response to a series of EU laws such as those on the admissibility of evidence obtained by torture, on minimum standards for suspects in criminal proceedings and the European arrest warrant.
An EU decision on combating terrorism, for example, is thought to be so vague that it could implicate people demonstrating or protesting, while terrorist blacklists are drawn up with "no judicial supervision regarding inclusion on them".
Dirk Oosting, the director of Amnesty International in Brussels, said the laws have created "legal confusion and uncertainty".
"Respect for human rights is often portrayed as hampering efforts to defeat terrorism", he said.
An EU-US extradition agreement from 2003 is criticised for the fact that it does not oblige member states to refuse extradition if the death penalty is to be imposed.
The report also says the bloc does not pay enough attention to the possible abuse of terrorist suspects when they are sent outside its borders.
The EU's anti-terrorism co-ordinator, Gijs de Vries, said Amnesty's report was incomplete because it did not address the threat terrorism poses to human rights.
"In the fight against terrorism, governments have a duty to heed the victim's call for justice and . . . protection and the EU's counter-terrorism legislation [ is] designed to this end" said Mr de Vries.