Brussels, 25/02/2008 (Agence Europe) - Poland and Romania have once again been asked if their territory was used by the CIA for the detention and transfer of terrorist suspects, the European Commission said on Friday 22 February. “We are waiting for the answers,” said Commission spokesman Johannes Laitenberger, without saying what might be happen if the two states refuse to give details. Letters requesting more explicit information on the allegations that detention centres had been located on their territories were sent by the Commission to the Polish and Romanian authorities on 21 July 2007, Laitenberger said. “We did not receive a reply from Poland and the information supplied by Romania was deemed to be unsatisfactory,” he added, stating that reminders had been sent to the two countries on 29 January 2008. He said that Commissioner Franco Frattini had launched a series of initiatives, for example sending letters to EU member states to assess how effective they were in combating terrorism and protecting fundamental rights (see EUROPE 9510). Hitherto, very few member states have opened criminal investigations into alleged illegal CIA activities in Europe. In Germany, a criminal investigation was launched alongside a parliamentary committee of enquiry, which is due to report around September 2009. In Italy, the Milan case on the involvement of the Italian secret service in the abduction of a former imam is due to resume in March. At the start of 2007, Portugal opened an investigation into the possible over-flight of Portugal by illegal CIA flights. At the end of January, a Spanish prosecutor was appointed to determine whether or not certain airports had been used by the US air force for stop-overs between Afghanistan and the Guantánamo base. (B.C.)