We have said all we have to say on this. The Council of Europe report adds absolutely nothing new to the information we have.

What I have said is that rendition had been the policy of the American government for a long time including under the last administration as well as this administration. We have kept parliament informed of all the requests we are aware of - four in 1998, two of which were granted, two declined.

These accusations are slanderous... They are not based on any facts.

We want to see clearly the statements made by [investigator] Dick Marty and we are also interested to see the evidence backing his statements.

If someone uses words like 'I believe that', that person has the obligation to prove his statements. We cannot play like that with rumours that can undermine a country's credibility.

Norica Nicolai, deputy chief of the senate's defence commission

I think that we're certainly disappointed at the tone and the content of it.

We don't see any new solid facts in it.

Spokesman Sean McCormack

Everything we had to say we told the delegation from the European parliament.

Senior government official quoted by Reuters news agency, regarding case of German citizen Khalid al-Masri

Ireland is absolutely opposed to extraordinary rendition. The US authorities are fully aware of our position and accept this.

In relation to collusion, there is absolutely no question of Ireland having colluded in the stopover of any flights.

Irish Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman quoted by Reuters news agency

All flight movements to and from Greece were done with full and strict respect of the laws, rules and international conventions that govern international flights.

Evangelos Antonaros, government spokesperson

We were never asked by the United States... all these were technical landings that they informed us about while they were in the air.

They had technical reasons to land and there were no suspicions of what kind of flights these were.

Foreign Ministry source quoted by Reuters news agency