Now British forces admit rendering prisoners - is anyone surprised?

When Defence Secretary John Hutton admitted that, contrary to previous government assurances, two terror suspects captured by British troops in Iraq were handed over to the United States to be rendered to Afghanistan, no-one at Reprieve expressed surprise.

In the course of trying to reach prisoners held beyond the rule of law worldwide, our investigators have uncovered a multitude of uncomfortable facts about our own government's role in the War on Terror. The challenge for us has been trying to get the Department of Defence to 'fess up', and help us access the thousands of 'disappeared' prisoners who are the forgotten victims of this war.

So we welcome the admission, not only that the UK has colluded with the USA in the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition, but also that the previous Defence Secretary misled parliament and the public on this issue.

Frustratingly, this government has misled us again and again. First, they said that Diego Garcia was not used for rendition flights; then David Miliband had to admit that Jack Straw had misled us on that and apologise to parliament.

Then Mr Miliband said over and again that the government and its security services condemn torture, yet it seems that those services were complicit in the torture of Reprieve's client, Binyam Mohamed. Indeed, for the first time, the UN's senior torture investigator has directly criticised a British government, warning this government that Britain may have broken international law, referring to a range of concerns including the claims that intelligence officers were complicit in torture.

Now Defence Secretary Hutton tells us that, despite having previously said that this was not the case, British forces have in fact handed prisoners to US forces in Iraq whom the US have rendered to Afghanistan. It is worrying when we are no longer surprised to find out that our government has misled us to avoid the disclosure of embarrassing information.

All of this secrecy and cover up must stop. UN Senior Torture investigator, Manfred Nowak said of the government's refusal to disclose correspondence which would confirm MI5 involvement in the torture of Binyam: "I am very concerned about the fact that allegations of torture actually cannot be really investigated because of the state secrecy privilege. We must get away from the use of the state secrecy privilege as a way of quashing court cases and litigation from victims of torture being heard in public."

Despite this, both David Miliband and the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, have now refused to testify to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on allegations of British collusion.

Surely a line must be drawn at this point. The only way to rescue this government from loss of all credibility and trust is for it to institute a truly independent review of its conduct of the "War on Terror". We cannot learn from history unless we know what history is.

We at Reprieve have written to Defence Secretary Hutton offering to represent the two prisoners he has admitted to rendering, for free. By reuniting all prisoners - Iraqi, British or otherwise - with their legal rights, we can help the Department of Defence reaffirm a respect for the rule of law.

The problem is access. Reprieve needs both the US and UK defence forces to support our aims by allowing us to see prisoners - and, as we saw this week, this can be embarrassing.

As a 'neutral' organisation, the International Committee of the Red Cross often has access to prisoners when lawyers do not. A long-hidden report by the ICRC, delivered to the Bush administration in 2007, was leaked to the press last Monday. It stated that the administration's treatment of terror suspects "constituted torture".

This confirms what our Guantánamo clients have been telling us for years -the CIA ran illegal prisons where practices like waterboarding were routine.

Without doubt, this is embarrassing. But the more important question is how we stop this abuse from happening in the future.

Although Obama has promised to close CIA sites, this is simply not enough. Thousands more prisoners are held beyond the rule of law at military prisons like Bagram and proxy prisons - where prisoners are held by a third party but controlled by the US - worldwide. These prisoners remain at serious risk of abuse.

This is why Reprieve is so desperate to access these prisoners - starting with the two men rendered to Afghanistan.

Firstly, we must be told who they are, so that we can arrange legal representation for them. It is not acceptable for people to be imprisoned without the opportunity to challenge the legality of that imprisonment. Secondly, complete details about their detention must be fully disclosed. There has been enough hiding people away, out of reach of the law, in medieval conditions.

Here is a golden opportunity for the UK government to demonstrate a clear change in direction on the deeply unpopular practice of extraordinary rendition and illegal detention. We must all hope they take it.

This article first appeared in the prison newspaper, Inside Time.