British territory was used for two U.S. "extraordinary rendition" flights, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Thursday in an embarrassing admission.
Until today, Britain had repeatedly said there was no evidence showing the country was involved in rendition -- the secret transfer of alleged terrorists from one country to another without formal proceedings -- since the Sept. 11 attacks.
But Miliband said the U.S. has informed U.K. officials that two flights, each carrying one terror suspect, did land at the British Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia -- a U.S.-run military base.
The stops were only made to refuel the aircraft and detainees never left the plane, said Miliband.
"An error in the earlier U.S. records search meant that these cases did not come to light," Miliband told the House of Commons Thursday.
Washington has confirmed that one of the flights was destined for the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The other flight was bound for Morocco.
"U.S. investigations show no record of any other rendition through Diego Garcia or any other overseas territory, or through the U.K. itself since then," said Miliband.
CIA Director Michael Hayden, in a memo to agency employees, said the flights did land in Diego Garcia and that previous information "turned out to be wrong."
The CIA reviewed rendition records in late 2007 and discovered that the agency had refueled two separate planes on the island in 2002.
"The refueling, conducted more than five years ago, lasted just a short time. But it happened. That we found this mistake ourselves, and that we brought it to the attention of the British government, in no way changes or excuses the reality that we were in the wrong," said Hayden.
"An important part of intelligence work, inherently urgent, complex, and uncertain, is to take responsibility for errors and to learn from them."
Hayden said neither man was tortured. He also said Diego Garcia has never served as a holding facility for CIA prisoners.
"Frankly, we need to have more information about the basis of this," Mike Gapes, a British Labour MP, told Â鶹´«Ã½net from London on Thursday.
"It could have been an administrative error or it could have been actually a deliberate concealment."
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking in Brussels, said it was important to "ensure that this will not happen again."
Miliband said U.K. officials are compiling a list of questionable flights and will then seek "specific assurance" from the U.S. that they were not used for rendition purposes.
The practice of extraordinary renditions is a practice banned under the human rights rules of the European Union.
With files from The Associated Press
