MILAN, December 23, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – An Italian court issued on Friday, December 23, a European arrest warrants for 22 CIA agents accused of abducting a Muslim imam from Italy's financial capital in 2003.

Prosecutor Armando Spataro told Reuters he had also asked Interpol to try to detain the suspects anywhere in the world.

The US embassy in Rome was not immediately available for comment.

Milan magistrates suspect a CIA team grabbed Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and flew him for interrogation to Egypt, where he said he was tortured.

Milan magistrates asked the Italian Justice Ministry last month to seek the extradition of the suspects from the United States, but Justice Minister Roberto Castelli has not yet decided whether to act on the request.

A European Union warrant is automatically valid across the 25-nation bloc and does not require approval of any government.

The warrant was agreed by the European Union in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 and was hailed as a key part of the bloc's fight against terrorism.

Justice officials believe Nasr, accused of ties to Al-Qaeda, is still in custody in Egypt.

The case has gained renewed attention following reports that the US spy agency operated both flights in and out of European airspace and airports, and a network of secret prisons in eastern Europe where suspects were held and questioned.

In a related development, an Irish human rights watchdog urged the government Friday to inspect CIA planes believed to be transporting suspects, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) said it was "seriously concerned" about reports that US aircraft landing at Ireland's Shannon airport may be carrying detainees to secret locations where they were at risk of torture.

"The Irish government has a clear obligation both under the Convention against Torture, the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) and under domestic law to prevent any actions on our soil which could in any way facilitate torture or ill-treatment even in another country," the IHRC said in a statement.

The government has said Washington has given assurances that the flights are not transporting detainees to places where they can be tortured, but the commission insisted this was not enough.

"In light of Ireland's international legal obligations in this field, reliance on diplomatic assurances is not sufficient to protect against the risk of torture and other forms of ill-treatment," it said.

"Accordingly, the commission calls on the government, as a matter of urgency, to seek the agreement of the US authorities to the inspection of aircraft suspected of involvement in this traffic."

Amnesty International maintains that CIA-hired aircraft have landed at Shannon -- the first airport across the North Atlantic from the United States -- 50 times in recent years.

The Bush administration has faced international criticism over detainees after a November 2 Washington Post article said the CIA held dozens of terror suspects in secret prisons called "black sites" in countries around the world, including eastern Europe.

The EU has threatened sanctions against any of its member states found to have been operating such secret prisons, or allowing their territory to be used for the transport of the phantom detainees.

A Europe-wide investigation is under way with an interim report to the Council of Europe on Tuesday, December 13, saying reports of secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe were credible.