Amnesty International today released a new, in depth report on the U.S. practice of extraordinary renditions -- where the CIA secretly flys detainees to overseas prisons for interrogation and confinement, including countries that practice torture. It's called "USA - Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and 'disappearance". I call it Ghost Air.

The human rights organisation has analysed the movements of airplanes directly linked to the CIA between 2001 and 2005, specifically, the aircraft that transported well known rendition victims such as Khaled el-Masri, Maher Arar and Abu Omar. The analysis shows that these airplanes often used European airspace, although it does not prove that they were always transporting prisoners.

Amnesty International has interviewed several victims of rendition. Their testimonies were coherent and plausible when checked against factual data such as flight information. Also consistent was the description, by every single one, of incidents of torture and other ill-treatment.