BELGRADE, Nov. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- The US military on Saturday denied that it was running a Guantanamo-type prison for terrorism suspects in Kosovo, said reports reaching here from Kosovo.

    "There are no secret detention facilities located on Camp Bondsteel (in eastern Kosovo)," a US military spokesman in Kosovo said, in reference to the US base as part of NATO-led forces in the Serbian breakaway province.

    The spokesman said that Camp Bondsteel included a detention facility used to house people detained during NATO peacekeeping operations in Kosovo, but it was currently empty and it was not used as a secret prison by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

    "The facility is subject to inspection by the International Committee of the Red Cross and is regularly inspected by the United States Army, Europe," said the spokesman.

    The denial came as the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner Alvaro Gil-Robles charged Friday in an interview with France's Le Monde newspaper that the United States ran a detention center in Kosovo that resembled "a smaller version of Guantanamo".

    Washington has faced severe criticism from human rights groups for keeping suspects in the US "war on terror" that was launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks locked up at Guantanamo Bay without access to lawyers.

    More recently, it has also been accused of maintaining a network of covert CIA detention centers in foreign countries, notably in Asia and in eastern Europe, where suspects are subjected to vigorous interrogation techniques some critics say amount to torture.

    Earlier this week the Council of Europe, which guarantees human rights in its 46 member states, launched an investigation into the alleged prisons.  Enditem