Host of CIA secret prisons to lose voting rights: EU

Franco Frattini, commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, said that under EU law, if reports of secret CIA jails were true, states would face "serious consequences, including the suspension of the right to vote in the Council."

Frattini told a news conference he would be obliged by EU treaties to recommend the suspension to the Council, which brings together ministers of the 25 member countries and is the bloc's main decision-making body.

The comments were his most explicit to date on the implications for any country found to have hosted a secret CIA facility for interrogating terrorism suspects.