[JURIST] Incoming US Senate Armed Services Committee [official website] chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) [official website] said Tuesday that his committee's priorities will include an investigation into CIA extraordinary rendition flights [JURIST news archive]. In an interview with the Financial Times, Levin said he was uncomfortable with the system and believes "that there's been some significant abuses which have not made us more secure but have made us less secure and have also, perhaps, cost us some real allies, as well as not producing useful information. So I think the system needs a thorough review and, as the military would say, a thorough scrubbing."

Both the European Union and the Council of Europe began their own investigations into the CIA's alleged use of illegal rendition flights throughout Europe and an associated system of secret prisons [JURIST news archive] after their existence was first disclosed in media reports [JURIST report] in November 2005. In June 2006 the Council of Europe passed a resolution [JURIST report] condemning alleged collusion between some European governments and the CIA after a probe [JURIST report; PDF text report] by Swiss legislator Dick Marty concluded that illegal US detention centers in Europe existed and that 14 European nations, including Britain, had allowed extraordinary rendition flights to travel through their airspace. President Bush finally acknowledged the existence of US secret prisons [JURIST report] for terror detainees in September. The Guardian has more.