GENEVA, Jan. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- An Egyptian government fax intercepted by the Swiss secret services said that the United States had detained 23 terror suspects in a detention center in Romania, a Swiss weekly reported on Sunday.

    The fax said the Egyptian embassy in London learned from its own sources that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens had been questioned at the Mikhail Kogalniceanu base in the Romanian town of Constanzaon the Black Sea coast, the Zurich-based weekly Sonntags Blick reported.

    Egypt believed there were similar centers in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria, the paper quoted a report written by the Swiss Defense Ministry.

    The newspaper said the fax, which was signed by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, was the firmest evidence yet of the alleged secret CIA detention centers in Eastern Europe that were first reported on Nov. 2 in The Washington Post.

    "For the first time a state confirms that it knows of the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe," the newspaper said.

    Amid protests from European countries that their airports are being used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to transport suspects, the United States has not denied the existence of alleged prisons in eastern and central Europe and elsewhere, but has refuted allegations that it uses torture to obtain information.

    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the United States acts within the law.

    During a stopover in Bucharest, Rice signed an agreement with Romania to establish permanent U.S. military bases in the country.The new U.S. military presence will have its headquarters at Mikhail Kogalniceanu. Enditem