Canada is investigating reports that a plane used by the US Central Intelligence Agency to transport prisoners for interrogation landed at a Canadian airport last week.
The French-language La Pressenewspaper said the plane had taken off from Iceland heading for St John's in Newfoundland, on Canada's east coast. The Canadian Presssaid the 40-seat turboprop landed in St John's on Friday before returning to its base in North Carolina.
A foreign ministry spokeswoman confirmed the matter was being investigated. The U.S. embassy in Ottawa said it had no comment.
The issue has caused considerable anger in Ireland where campaigners claim prisoners are being transported from Iraq to the US and Gauntanamo Bay, Cuba, for interrogation and sometimes torture.
Ireland official policy is to only allow non-military personnel and supplies use Shannon whne engaged on missions relating to the US campaign in Iraq.
Last week, Spain said it was investigating allegations the CIA used a Spanish airport as a base for transporting Islamic terrorism suspects.
The Washington Postsaid this month that the CIA had been interrogating al Qaeda captives at secret facilities in Eastern Europe as part of a covert prison system.
La Pressesaid the aircraft heading for Canada bore the registration mark N196D and was operated by North Carolina firm Devon Holding and Leasing. In May, the New York Timessaid the firm was one of seven shell corporations used by the CIA to transport suspects around the world.
"We have no absolutely no information nor any reason to believe that such an aircraft was involved in such a matter," public security minister Anne McLellan told parliament today.
The tight security relationship between Ottawa and Washington was dented in 2002 when US agents deported a Canadian man to Syria on the grounds he was an al Qaeda agent.
The man - Ottawa engineer Maher Arar - spent almost a year in Damascus jails and said he was repeatedly tortured while behind bars. Arar insists he is innocent and a public inquiry is currently investigating his case.
"We know the Canadian government was more than negligent about its responsibilities in the Maher Arar affair. This negligence must not be repeated," said legislator Francine Lalonde of the opposition Bloc Quebecois, demanding Ottawa raise the matter with Washington.
La Pressesaid another Devon Holding and Leasing aircraft, with the registration mark N168D, had left St. John's in April this year headed for Iceland and then Prague.
The newspaper cited Icelandic media as saying suspected CIA planes had made more than 60 stopovers in Iceland since the Sept 11, 2001 suicide attacks in the United States.