In her response to allegations about the Central Intelligence Agency’s activities in Europe, the US secretary of state failed to get to grips with European perceptions that President George W. Bush's America is a wild, brutal place that contrasts with the peaceful, law-abiding EU.

Ms Rice's statement this week included three big legal arguments, all of which fell far short of bringing the debate to a close. She spent most of her time justifying the US use of "rendition" - transporting suspects from third countries without the say-so of a judge - in what US officials say is the first official acknowledgement of the practice since September 11.

"There have long been many… cases where for some reason the local government cannot detain or prosecute a suspect and traditional extradition is not a good option," she said. "In those cases the local government can make the sovereign choice to cooperate in a rendition. Such renditions are permissible under international law and are consistent with the responsibilities of those governments to protect their citizens." She added that the US and other countries had used renditions for decades, and that the French government's abduction of the terrorist Carlos the Jackal in the 1990s was judged as legal by the European Commission of Human Rights.

But the problem is that to say that some renditions have been held to be legal is not the same as proving that all such abductions are legal. As extra-judicial measures, renditions are legally controversial by definition. In addition, one principal feature of Carlos the Jackal's case was that he was put on trial - unlike many of the US's detainees.