Brussels, 29/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - European Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said on Monday that any Union member country found to be allowing the CIA to operate detention centres could have its voting rights within the EU suspended. Speaking at a conference in Berlin on combating terrorism, he said he would be forced to recommend heavy penalties, including the suspension of voting rights in Council (as foreseen in the Treaty). Friso Roscam Abbing, the JHA Commissioner's spokesman, specified on Tuesday that “this sanction would not apply for CIA aircraft landing in European airports as each Member State has the right to authorise such landings, as it sees fit”. Mr Frattini also recalled that the Commission does not legally have the power to investigate on the possible presence of CIA detention sites in Europe. Mr Roscam Abbing went on to add that the Commission does, however, give its full support to the investigation conducted by Dick Marty, Chairman of the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (EUROPE 9067), as well as to the initiative taken by Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, calling on the organisation's 45 governments to provide an explanation by 21 February 2006 at the latest. Franco Frattini pointed out that the subject had been tackled last week with White House and State Department representatives who had called on the JHA Director General at the Commission, Jonathan Faul, to give them the time needed for assessing the situation. The CIA has to date refused to comment on the European inquiry. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be in Brussels on Thursday for a NATO meeting. According to the State Department, the United States will give as complete and frank a response as possible to the questions put to it on secret CIA activities in Europe.