Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski said Sunday that flights operated by the CIA may have stopped over in his country but denied prisoners were secretly held here.

"Does the fight against terrorism need solidarity? Yes, it does. Does it need cooperation by special services? Yes, it does. Were there any secret flights. Probably," Kwasniewski said on public television.

But he added that "no (secret) prisons or prisoners" existed in Poland.

The statement came just days before Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz will present the findings of an inquiry into whether covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisons existed in Poland.

Marcinkiewicz ordered the inquiry after the media reported that the CIA had secret detention centers in Poland for suspected terrorists captured by U.S. forces.

Last Thursday, the European Parliament took another step toward the launch of an official probe into alleged CIA secret jails, marking an escalation in days of tensions between Europe and the United States on the issue.

Lawmakers in Strasbourg decided in principle to open the inquiry one day after leaders of party groups of the European Parliament agreed to set up a temporary ad hoc committee to look into the allegations.

(Xinhua News Agency December 19, 2005)