Rice woos Europe's politicians, not people

On a trip that ended on Friday, Rice aimed to defuse anger that has raged across the continent since a newspaper report early last month said the United States held suspects in clandestine jails in eastern Europe.

Allies, who had responded to public pressure by seeking answers from Washington before Rice's trip, quickly retreated in the face of her defence that the United States respected their sovereignty and acted within the law in its war on terrorism.

Governments had little appetite to reopen a transatlantic rift after clashes over the Iraq war and avoided digging too deeply into accusations that could expose their own tactics against militants.

But Rice's refusal to answer the allegation of secret prisons has left a lightning rod for anger among European publics already critical of the United States over detainee abuse scandals in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

That means Europeans will continue to demand their leaders extract answers from Washington, Charles Kupchan of the Washington-based thinktank the Council on Foreign Relations said.

"Rice and her counterparts were successful at creating the image of a unified front," he said. "But I doubt this issue is going to be defused by the atmospherics in the realm of high politics."