More than 20 European nations offered support to covert CIA operations to kidnap terror suspects - but many Western countries are conspicuously absent from the list of the 54 states which took part in extraordinary rendition, according to a new report.
A groundbreaking document published by the Open Society Foundation, on Tuesday shows that 54 countries, a quarter of the world's nations, cooperated with the CIA's extraordinary rendition programme.
France, under President Jacques Chirac, did not take part in extraordinary rendition, according to the report
But France, which famously avoided involvement in the Iraq war, Holland, Norway and Russia do not feature on the list of countries which supplied help to the CIA's covert international detention and torture operation which follow the 9/11 attacks.
Reprieve investigator Dr Crofton Black told HuffPost UK the absence of those countries "is something potentially surprising."
He added: "There's essentially two sorts of complicity, where your intelligence services are taking part in interrogations of suspects.
"And there's the more passive complicity, where you allow yourselves to be used as a logistical hub, but no prisoners are transported there, places like Portugal.
"The virtue of this report is that we can start to ask questions. We can question governments about planes that landed there."
Of the Scandinavian nations and northern European nations, Sweden, Denmark and Finland took part in extrordinary rendition, but Norway did not, according to the research from the Open Society Foundation.
Dr Black said it was "very surprising" Russia was not on the list of those having taken part in extraordinary rendition co-operation, although Georgia is included in the list. Israel was also absent from the list.
Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Austria took part, but France, Holland and Hungary did not.
Dr Black offered some explanation about why CIA planes may not have landed in certain countries. "It could often be a matter of geographical location. Many of these countries were re-routing points, where pilots and crew might rest on their way to or from a rendition operation, like Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain are very common stop-over points.
"Finland is less common, and something missing from this report actually, is it was used as a dummy location. The flight logs said the plane was going to Finland and actually went to Lithuania.
"When they pick up a prisoner they would not let anyone near the plane, not to refuel, not to stop for a minute. They would drop someone in Afghanistan and then travel to refuel and rest in Uzbekistan."
The report states that Britain played an intimate role in extraordinary rendition, supporting interrogations and allowing the use of British airports and airspace.
THE 54 COUNTRIES WHICH PARTICIPATED IN EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION
1.Afghanistan
2.Albania
3.Algeria,
4.Australia
5.Austria
6.Azerbaijan
7.Belgium
8.Bosnia-Herzegovina
9.Canada
10.Croatia
11.Cyprus
12.Czech Republic
13.Denmark
14.Djibouti
15.Egypt
16.Ethiopia
17.Finland
18.Gambia
19.Georgia
20.Germany
21.Greece
22.Hong Kong
23.Iceland
24.Indonesia
25.Iran
26.Ireland
27.Italy
28.Jordan
29.Kenya
30.Libya
31.Lithuania
32.Macedonia
33.Malawi
34.Malaysia
35.Mauritania
36.Morocco
37.Pakistan
38.Poland
39.Portugal
40.Romania
41.Saudi Arabia
42.Somalia
43.South Africa
44.Spain
45.Sri Lanka
46.Sweden
47.Syria
48.Thailand
49.Turkey
50.United Arab Emirates
51.United Kingdom
52.Uzbekistan
53.Yemen
54.Zimbabwe