Even more from the European Parliament:

M. whereas, in the absence of any quasi-judicial investigatory powers and in the face of alleged activity by intelligence services being kept secret by national authorities, the temporary committee has nonetheless succeeded in establishing a prima facie case that illegal practices have taken place on European territory affecting European citizens and residents and has therefore shifted to European governments the burden of proving whether, in fact, their human rights obligations under Article 6 TEU and the ECHR have been met,

Governments are not only defeningly silent, but have stonewalled the investigation on national security grounds. Only national parliaments can effectively investigate their own government, military and secret service.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

For the moment I have no time to comment much.
Here is a good link with tons of  detailed information:

Manfred Novak, special rapporteur on torture, has catalogued in a 15-page U.N. report presented to the 191-member General Assembly that the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Sweden and Kyrgyzstan are for violating international human rights conventions by deporting terrorist suspects to countries such as Egypt, Syria, Algeria and Uzbekistan, where they may have been tortured.

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

In Portugal the Government keeps dodging the subject. The new Foreign Office minister dismisses the subject, but it's obvious that the Azores are almost unavoidable as a base for transatlantic traffic. Especially since there is an American air base there.
Curiously one of the main voices raising concerns on the subject comes from inside the PS itself (the party in power), in the person of Euro-Deputy Ana Gomes, a former diplomat influencial in the whole East Timor process 6 years ago.

It's noteworthy that the former Foreign Office minister was not a Socialist, but rather a former CDS leader (right wing, christian-democrat) who was very vocal against the Iraq war. The new one seems more willing to compromise....

interesting bits for US Oils companies

From Le Monde:

Il n'y aura pas d'information judiciaire en France sur les escales effectuées par des avions soupçonnés de convoyer des prisonniers pour la CIA (Agence centrale de renseignement américaine). Le parquet de Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) a décidé de classer sans suite la plainte déposée le 21 décembre 2005 par la Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme (FIDH) et la Ligue française pour la défense des droits de l'homme et du citoyen (LDH). Le procureur de la République, François Molins, s'en est - partiellement - expliqué auprès de Me Patrick Baudouin, dans un courrier daté du 23 août. [...]

Dans leur plainte, la FIDH et la LDH avaient estimé que la justice française pouvait se saisir de l'affaire au nom du principe de compétence universelle, permettant de poursuivre les auteurs présumés des crimes les plus graves, quels que soient le lieu de l'infraction ou la nationalité de l'auteur et de la victime. Le rejet de cette plainte est jugé "très décevante" par Me Baudouin. "La réponse du procureur sur les vols du Bourget paraît bien elliptique, explique-t-il. Dans un contexte de lutte contre le terrorisme et de discours sur la protection des citoyens, on nous explique qu'il est impossible de connaître la provenance, la destination et l'identité des passagers d'un avion qui a transité cinq fois en France."

This question has not been played much in the swedish election as both the sitting government (socialdemocrat) and main parties of the opposition (center-right) would find it mostly embarrasing. They basically got the same position here.

Naturally Piratpartiet is an opponent of secret renditions.

Is it fair to say that Europe is the equivalent of Democratic Party?  

That's what it looks like from here.  Lots of talk about the lovely things they stand for, lots of frustration and disgust by Bush's policies, and lots and lots of appeasement.  

I suspect that living in one of these secret prison/stopover countries gives you a taste of what it is like to be an American.  A liberal American, anyway.  

Hey, where's the outrage?  Why did you let him use your country for evil deed?  Why didn't you stop him?  I guess the average European condones torture, since they let him do this, huh?  See?  You didn't have any say in whether Bush used your country to commit attrocities!  We didn't have any say in it either.  We could harrass our representatives to oppose it, but they are either too busy covering their own asses or are a minority with less bargaining power than the Bush Admin.  Like you, we had no idea this was even going on.  

We don't like what Bush has used our country for, but unfortunately we don't learn the extent of the abuses until well after the fact.  It's not like we have heated public debates and then decide we ok torture, or spying, or whatever.  We can engange in a public debate if it makes us feel better, but this Admin is going to do whatever it wants regardless what we decide.  

Our justice system has ruled against the secret prisons.  

But I think we are going to need an international effort to prosecute these war crimes.  

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire

The list of state officials who will be invited to testify in hearings in the following months is impressive. The TDIP may not have full judiciary powers but some of the testimony has been damning, such as in the case of Sismi chief Nicolò Pollari who practically admitted that the Italian government was aware of the CIA project to kidnap Abu Omar. (He testified that he refused to participate in the project, ergo a superior requested it.)

Noteworthy was the "showdown" in Washington when an official committee delegation was received at State. The State spokesperson charged committee members with conducting an inquisition and refused to answer questions on CIA kidnappings in Europe. Too bad the TDIP Committee doesn't have full investigative power. But even then as a Greek luminary quipped long ago, Justice is on the side of the powerful.