Six human rights groups today called on the US government to explain the whereabouts of 39 people they said were believed to have "disappeared" in US custody.
The groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said they filed a US federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information about the 39 people it terms "ghost prisoners" in the US "war on terror".
"Since the end of Latin America's dirty wars, the world has rejected the use of 'disappearances' as a fundamental violation of international law," Prof Meg Satterthwaite of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University's School of Law said in a statement.
The report said suspects' relatives, including children as young as seven, had been held in secret detention on occasion.
The detentions began shortly after the September 11th attacks and include people said to be captured in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.
A CIA spokesman dismissed the report, saying the CIA acts in "strict accord with American law" and its counter-terrorist initiatives are "subject to careful review and oversight.
"The United States does not conduct or condone torture," he said.
In September, President Bush acknowledged the CIA had interrogated dozens of suspects at secret overseas locations and said 14 of those held had been sent to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He defended the secret detention and questioning of terrorism suspects, but the programme has drawn international outcry and questions about the cooperation of European governments.