U.S intelligence agencies deliberately concealed their mistreatment of terror suspects, a former head of MI5 claimed last night.
Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller also said she had only learnt that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded - a total of 160 times - after retiring from the Security Service in 2007.
In a speech to the Mile End Group at the House of Lords, Lady Manningham-Buller also revealed that Britain protested against the treatment of terror suspects.
'The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing,' said the former head of the domestic spy agency.
They were 'very keen to conceal from us what was happening'.
She said she had wondered, in 2002 and 2003, how the US had been able to supply the UK with intelligence from Mohammed.
'I said to my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because our experience of Irish prisoners, Irish terrorists, was that they never said anything,' she said.
'They said, well, the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it.
'It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times.'
She said British spies are proud to be quietly effective, unlike the gung-ho U.K. intelligence officers portrayed in TV dramas.
But she joked that members of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, may have been inspired by on-screen excess.
'One of the sad things is Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush all watched "24",' Lady Manningham-Buller said, referring to the popular TV show about a counter-terrorist agent, starring Kiefer Sutherland.
Her intervention follows intense controversy over British agents' alleged collusion with U.S. counterparts employing torture techniques.
It erupted last month after the disclosure of what was described as the 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident formerly held at Guantanamo Bay.
Ministers and current MI5 chief Jonathan Evans have insisted there was no collusion by UK security forces.
But there are enduring questions about exactly when they learnt that the U.S. apparently changed its rules on torture after the 9/11 attacks.
The security services are also under pressure over claims that they have a 'culture of suppression' about such matters.
Lady Manningham-Buller said the Government had lodged 'protests' with the Americans about its treatment of detainees, but refused to elaborate.
She went on to say that the allegations of complicity in torture could disrupt MI5's work.
'The allegations of collusion in torture and the lack of respect for human rights will wound those individuals personally and collectively, and in some respects - whether proven or not - it will make it harder for them to do their jobs,' she said.
Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller said she had only learnt that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded after retiring in 2007
Human rights activists demonstrate waterboarding on a volunteer in a protest outside Capitol Hill, Washington
Cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment: Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Binyam Mohamed
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