UN probes U.S. secret prisons

United Nations human rights experts have begun investigating allegations that the United States is running secret prisons where it keeps what it calls terror suspects.

The move includes interviewing former “terror suspects” who have been released from the United States detention.

UN special expert on terrorism, Manfred Nowak says that some undeclared detention centers includes U.S. Navy ships cruising extraterritorial waters.

He added that there were “serious” allegations to that effect from the Amnesty International and other human rights groups.

“I have heard these rumors and we have to follow them up,” he said.

He, moreover, called on the Bush administration to cooperate with the investigation.

Nowak is a member of a team of legal, human rights and terrorism experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Commission, the United Nations’ top rights watchdog.

Nowak, a Vienna law professor, cited "persistent and credible" reports that state that there are U.S. secret prisons on ships in international waters.

However, the UN human rights experts need more evidence on that, he said.

Earlier, he told Austrian Broadcasting Company that there could be secret U.S. prisons on ships in the Indian Ocean.