BERLIN, Nov. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- The German government on Saturday urged the United States to give an official answer on allegations that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made secret flights over Europe to transport terrorist suspects.

   On the eve of his visit to Washington, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in an interview with the weekly Bild am Sonntag, that an evaluation must be made on the basis of facts and not from media reports about the issue.

   The new foreign minister welcomed British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's call for the US officially to clear up questions surrounding the claims of secret flights over Europe.

   Reports had said that the CIA secretly transported terrorist suspects to locations in Central and Eastern Europe for
interrogation via European airports.

   Claudia Roth, a leading member of Germany's Green Party, told the German weekly Welt am Sonntag that she expected Steinmeier to press the US side to make clarification over the affair.

   Roth said that the German foreign minister needed to ask Washington how many prisons were involved, when and where they were transported and what stops were made in Germany.

   "He must also make it clear that it concerns both international law and human rights obligations," he said. Enditem