Former US President George W Bush (l) with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw in 2001. Source: AP

After years of denials, former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, 60, and former Prime Minister Leszek Miller, 68, said they agreed to a US request to find a “quiet site” where agents could interrogate prisoners.

“The U.S. side asked the Polish side to find a quiet site where it could conduct activity that would allow to effectively obtain information from persons who had declared readiness to cooperate with the US side,” Mr Kwasniewski told reporters. “We gave our consent to that.”

However, Mr Kwasniewski said, Poland insisted the prisoners should be treated humanely as prisoners of war.

He spoke after a damning US Senate report outlined CIA abuses of suspected al Qa’ida prisoners which took place in secret “black” prisons around the world, including Poland. ‘Enhanced’ interrogation techniques at the prisons included simulated drowning, or waterboarding, sleep deprivation for days at a time and forcing prisoners into painful stress positions for hours on end.

Former CIA officials said they had operated from the north-eastern Polish town of Stare Kiejkuty from December 2002 until the autumn of 2003.

Human rights groups believe about eight terror suspects were held in Poland, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr Kwasniewski was in power from 1995 to 2005, but has denied the site’s existence until now.

In an effort to justify the sudden acknowledgment, Mr Miller said he sought information and his knowledge about the site is now much greater than it was just days ago.

Mr Kwasniewski said the prison, which he referred to as a “site,” was part of “deepened” intelligence cooperation with the US in the fight against terrorism after the September 11 attacks, and he insisted he had no knowledge of what took place inside it.

Mr Kwasniewski said this form of cooperation was halted in late 2003 after he pressured former US President George W. Bush to close the prison, amid concerns that Poland had no control of it and that its secrecy could be divulged.

Mr Kwasniewski and Mr Miller both criticised the publication of the US report, saying it hurt the interests of the United States, and of its allies at a dangerous time for international security. They said it also could undermine confidence in America.

“If a key US agency was deceiving its own president ... the allies will be asking: How can we trust our US partners?” Kwasniewski said. “With this publication the Americans lose their potential as an ally.”

He said the report exposed America’s weakness, especially in the eyes of Russia.

The report, which is heavily redacted, does not mention Poland by name. However, one section clearly refers to Poland, due to references to detainees and the dates they were held in Poland.

According to the report, there were “multiple, ongoing difficulties” between the US and Poland over the program. Four months after the detention site began holding detainees, Poland rejected further transfers. That decision, however, was reversed after the U.S. ambassador intervened with the country’s leadership and the CIA provided a large sum of money to Poland.

After the money transfer, officials indicated the country “was now flexible with regard to the number of CIA detainees at the facility and when the facility would eventually be closed,” the report says.

Kwasniewski insisted the report was wrong in linking the CIA site to the money, which, he said, was an unrelated funding for the intelligence services and can be accounted for.

In 2008, Poland’s centre-right government ordered a probe into the reports. Government officials say the US report could provide new evidence for the probe, which is still ongoing. However, human rights activists believe the government has not shown a real interest in bringing the full story to light and have accused the government of dragging out the investigation.

AP