BERLIN, Dec. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who began a four-nation European tour on Monday, was set to try quelling concerns on Tuesday over alleged abuses in secret prisons of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Eastern Europe.

    However, at the start of a five-day trip that was expected to be overshadowed by the CIA secret prison and flight allegations inthe region, Rice did not directly address the allegations.

    Rice arrived at Berlin on late Monday and was to hold talks with new German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin at 0900 GMT Tuesday on the first stop of a trip that will also take her to Romania, Ukraine and Brussels for a NATO ministerial meeting.

    German news agency DPA reported that Merkel will question Rice over the allegations that the CIA used German airports to transport terror suspects to secret prisons.

    The German government confirmed that they had received a list of 437 flights by the CIA through Germany in recent years.

    The German magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday that two aircraft, registered to private companies but used to carry out CIA work, passed through German airspace or touched down on Germansoil 137 times in 2002 and 146 times in 2003.

    The airplanes stopped in Berlin, Frankfurt and the US Ramstein Air Force Base.

    However, the list, compiled by the national air traffic controlservice in response to a question from the Left Party, gave no indication what was aboard the planes, the report said.

    Before leaving Washington, Rice had struck a combative tone, and denied the United States used torture "under any circumstances", but strongly defended moving suspects around for interrogation, insisting that tough tactics were needed to fight terrorism.

    Rice said the United States respected the sovereignty of allies,abided by the law and did not allow torture. She also said European intelligence agencies had worked with Washington to extract information from detainees.

    For a month, the United States has been on the defensive, refusing to deny or confirm media reports of the CIA prisons.

    The European Union (EU) has threatened to sanction any EU member countries which had such prisons on their territories. Enditem