WASHINGTON, June 1 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has questioned the continuing value of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) secret interrogation program for terrorism suspects, The New York Times reported Friday.

    The committee suggested that international condemnation and the obstacles CIA has created to criminal prosecution may outweigh its worth in gathering information.

    More than five years after the decision to start the program, "the committee believes that consideration should be given to whether it is the best means to obtain a full and reliable intelligence debriefing of a detainee," a committee report was quoted as saying.

    The report said that both the Congress and the administration "must continue to evaluate whether having a separate CIA detention program that operates under different interrogation rules than those applicable to military and law enforcement officers is necessary, lawful and in the best interests of the United States".

    The sweeping report, which accompanies the annual bill authorizing the activities of all of the spy agencies, reflects a striking reassertion of aggressive oversight since Democrats took control of Congress this year.

    Some Republicans joined in the skeptical language about several spying programs, and the report as a whole was approved 12 to 3, with the backing of all eight Democrats and four of the seven Republicans.

    The committee declared that it would block changes sought by the Bush administration in the law governing domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency unless it received long-sought administration documents on the secret surveillance program, including orders signed by President George W. Bush.

    The most novel element of the committee report is the assessment of the CIA detention program, which the committee has rarely discussed in public, the Times reported.

    The committee report, while acknowledging the secret detention program "has led to the identification of terrorists and the disruption of terrorist plots," said that achievement must now "be weighed against both the complications it causes to any ultimate prosecution of these terrorists, and the damage the program does to the image of the United States abroad".

    The committee stopped short of using its budget authority to shut down the program. In a closed session on May 23, two Democrats proposed barring spending on interrogation techniques that go beyond the Army Field Manual, which bans physical pressure or pain. Under their proposal, the only exception would have been when the president determined that " an individual has information about a specific and imminent threat".

    The amendment failed when Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, joined all the Republicans in voting no.