US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will launch a counteroffensive against European criticism of her government's treatment of detainees during her trip to Europe, which begins today.
For a month, the United States has been on the defensive, refusing to deny or confirm media reports it has held prisoners in secret in Eastern Europe and transported detainees covertly through airports across the continent.
The European Union has demanded that Washington address the allegations to allay fears of illegal US practices among the European public and parliaments, already critical of US prisoner-abuse scandals in Iraq and Guantanamo, Cuba.
Declining to answer any specific allegations, President George W. Bush's national security adviser outlined the main defense that Ms Rice will use on a five-day trip to Germany, Romania, Ukraine and EU headquarters Brussels.
"We comply with US law, we respect the sovereignty of the countries with which we deal, and we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured," Stephen Hadley told Fox News yesterday.
Ms Rice will also turn the pressure on US allies, urging them to make a better case to their public that their intelligence services are working with the United States to prevent attacks such as those against commuters in Madrid and London, European diplomats and US officials said.
And her hosts - such as the new German government, which wants a smooth start to its relationship with the Bush administration - have little appetite for forcing the issue.
They are loath to pick new quarrels with Washington and risk souring transatlantic ties which are only gradually recovering from a deep rift over the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Ms Rice has largely shunned appearing in public during the scandal as the Bush administration hammered out a strategy against the criticism. But the top US diplomat will personally address the issue before boarding her plane for Germany early today.
She will keep to the US policy of neither confirming or denying intelligence operations. But her emphasis during the trip that European allies have been cooperating in the war on terrorism is meant to stop governments pressing too hard for fear they will expose themselves to similar criticism, according to diplomats.
Some European Union governments face awkward and persistent suggestions that they may have known and approved of secret US operations taking place on their soil.