Rights Group lists CIA 'ghost prisoners'

The advocacy group also unveiled a report it said provided an unprecedented glimpse into grim conditions at the jails set up to hold top Al-Qaeda suspects captured on the battlefields of the war on terror.

Bowing to intense pressure from Congress, Bush admitted the existence of the CIA secret jails in September, but said the last 14 key Al-Qaeda members had been transferred to the Guantanamo Bay prison, Cuba.

"The Bush administration needs to provide a full accounting of everyone who was 'disappeared' into CIA prisons, including their names, locations and when they left US custody," said Joanne Mariner, Human Rights Watch (HRW) terrorism and counterterrorism director.

In the letter to Bush, the group mentioned names of 16 people it believes were held at CIA prisons and whose current whereabouts were unknown.

It also included a list of another 22 who may have been at CIA prisoners, who are also unaccounted for.

HRW said it was concerned the United States may have transferred some missing prisoners to foreign jails where they remain under the CIA's effective control.

"Another worrying possibility is that prisoners were transferred from CIA custody to places where they may face torture," the group said in a press release.

Much of the complaint was based on testimony of former CIA prisoner, Marwan Jabour, arrested by Pakistani authorities in May 2004, and later flown to a secret prison he believes to have been in Afghanistan.

He said he was left naked for a month after his arrival, including while he was questioned by women interrogators and filmed.

HRW said he was chained to the wall of his cell, and put in painful stress positions. During two years in the secret prison, Jabour spent almost all his time in a windowless cell, with little human contact.

"It was a grave," Jabour told HRW. "I felt like my life was over."

The existence of the CIA secret prisons, disclosed by the Washington Post in 2005, sparked outrage, particularly in Europe, where two enquiries showed that around 20 nations had cooperated to varying degrees in the program.

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