"Do CIA detention centres exist in Europe? Has the CIA been using European airports to transport terrorist suspects to places where they could face torture? These are two questions that lie at the heart of a new temporary committee to be set up by the Parliament" the legislature's website (www.europarl.eu.in) reported.
Made up of 46 Euro MPs, the committee will also investigate whether European governments were aware of these alleged activities, if citizens of the EU or of candidate states were involved, including as victims, in Europe or elsewhere.
It will submit "all necessary recommendations" to the parliament and will work "as closely as possible" with other institutions working on the same subject, such as the Council of Europe.
This report will be delivered within four months after it begins work, probably next week.
The co-head of the parliament's Green group, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, said the committee should not shy away from interviewing any potential witnesses, without discrimination, even, if it were necessary, "the Queen of England".
The committee will have no power to force anyone to appear before it, according to the leader of the Socialist Group, Martin Shulz.
But by requesting individuals' attendance it will "send signals at the international level which will compel those invited to publicly justify any refusal, he added.
Scottish flights
Meanwhile, Scotland's main opposition party has published a dossier implicating firms in helping what it alleged were US flights transporting terror suspects through Scottish airports.
The report by the Scottish National Party (SNP) lists planes, the dates on which they landed and 10 companies that have allegedly operated on behalf of the CIA.
Among the planes identified in the report is Gulfstream jet N379P/N8068V, dubbed the "Guantanamo Bay Express", reportedly used to transport suspects to the US prison in Cuba.
The dossier, compiled by a senior aviation expert, said the plane landed five times at Glasgow and Prestwick airports between 2002 and the end of 2004.
The SNP was sending a copy of the report to Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell, as well as to the Council of Europe, the European and British Parliaments.
SNP foreign affairs spokesman Angus Robertson said: "There is disquiet across Europe about this whole issue. This report gives worrying details about alleged rendition flights through Scotland.
Close Guantanamo
Meanwhile the European Parliament has called for the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to be closed down, calling it illegal. The EU legislature condemned the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo.
"The European Parliament condemns the transfer of hundreds of men captured by US troops after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002 to the illegal Guantanamo detention centre, where torture and other ill-treatment by US personnel have, according to numerous testimonies, been commonplace occurrences, and calls for its immediate closure," the resolution said.
It is the first EU call for the detention centre to be shut down, said Helmut Weixler, spokesman for the Greens in the assembly.
The prison on Cuba's eastern tip opened on January 11, 2002, after the US-led force ousted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Only nine of the roughly 500 detainees at the naval base have been charged after years in detention.
One of those charged is Australian man David Hicks. He is to face a military commission pending a decision in the US courts on the commissions' legality.