(CBS) The U.S. government does admit the existence of secret CIA prisons outside the U.S. but little else.

"Renditions take terrorists out of action and save lives," Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said before embarking on a trip to Europe last year, when she faced tough questions about rendition.

“The United States does not use the airspace or the airports of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee to a country where he or she will be tortured,” Rice said.

President Bush further described the CIA secret prisons when he announced in September the transfer of 14 key Al Qaeda suspects from previously undisclosed locations to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, home to nearly 500 terrorism suspects detained without access to U.S. courts.

In addition to the criminal inquiry in Germany, prosecutors in Italy and Spain are investigating the complicity of local officials in rendition. It turns out the Spanish island of Mallorca was a regular stopover from the private rendition jets coming from and returning to the United States. Spain denies any role in renditions or granting permission for such flights to land.

Stephen Grey, the author of the just-published "Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program" unearthed Spanish documents that point to the participation of Boeing through its subsidiary, Jeppesen.

“Certainly when they [those planes] passed through Spain, it was always Jeppesen that issued instructions for the local handlers of these planes,” Grey told us in an interview from London. “Their name appears on the records, their employees appear on the records, telexes come from Jeppesen ordering these planes to be facilitated when they land at these airports.

The documents show Jeppesen would organize flight plans and refueling, crew hotel accommodations, immigration facilities. Some documents name the pilots of rendition flights, such as Capt. James Fairing, a cover name for the pilot of El-Masri’s Jan. 23, 2004, flight to Afghanistan.

Grey is publishing the new documents on his web site: ghostplane.net.

"It doesn't mean Jeppesen knew what the purpose of the flights were, but they obviously were key in organizing the logistics of all these rendition flights and other CIA flights around the world."

Boeing spokesman Tim Neale wouldn't say whether the company has done work for the CIA or not.

“Jeppesen plans flights for literally thousands of clients every year and provides those services on a confidential basis. We don’t identify the names of clients,” Neale says. “We wouldn’t necessarily know who is on a plane.”

If the federal appeals court allows El-Masri's case to go forward, he may sue Jeppesen as well.

A European Parliament report due to be published Wednesday supports the thrust of El-Masri’s complaint. The parliament “fully endorses the preliminary findings” of German prosecutors “there is no evidence to refute Khaled El-Masri's version of events,” according to the draft final report on rendition.

The report also concludes that European countries knew about U.S. secret jails for terrorism suspects and have obstructed an investigation into the transport and illegal detention of prisoners.

It also says a “secret detention facility” need not be a prison, “but includes all places where somebody is held incommunicado, such as private apartments, police stations or hotel rooms, as in the case of Khaled El-Masri in Skopje.

El-Masri says, “As long as the case has not been terminated or cleared up, clarified, people keep a certain distance to me.”

By Armen Keteyian and Phil Hirschkorn
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