SCOTLAND's chief prosecutor has ordered police to look in to a major Senate report on CIA torture.
Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland instructed the force to "consider" the US investigation as part of its own probe in to allegations American agencies may have used Scottish airports to transfer prisoners to secret prisons.
Mr Mulholland said: "The use of torture cannot be condoned.
"It is against international law and contrary to the common law of Scotland.
"I have instructed Police Scotland to consider the information published in the U.S. Senate report as part of the ongoing police investigation into rendition flights into Scotland."
Scottish Police have been investigating alleged rendition flights via Scotland since last year.
Their investigation, also ordered by Mr Mulholland, followed an academic report that found that Wick, Aberdeen and Inverness Airports could have been used in the rendition of terror suspects.
It previously been claimed that Glasgow, Edinburgh and Prestwick airports were used as stop-offs for aircraft belonging to CIA front companies.
In a damning report, the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday said the interrogation of al Qaeda suspects in the wake of the 9/11 attacks was "far worse" than the agency had portrayed to the American Government and people.
Waterboarding methods had deteriorated to "a series of near drownings", it explained, and CIA staff subjected detainees to "rectal rehydration" and other painful procedures that were never approved.
In one instance in August 2002, Abu Zubaydah, al Qaeda's supposed one-time chief recruiter who had been in isolation for 47 days in a "dungeon" in Thailand, was subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques for almost 24 hours a day.
Shackled, hooded and naked, he was placed in a box shaped like a coffin, deprived of sleep and waterboarded, which led him to vomit and have spasms.
British human rights groups have called for a judge-led inquiry into the UK's involvement into the "shameful scandal" by allowing the of airports for rendition flights.
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