Brdo, Slovenia  - European Union countries should offer to host prisoners held in the United States' notorious Guantanamo Bay prison, Amnesty International said Monday.

"The EU could and should help the US in resolving this very concrete situation that is one of the issues preventing the closure of Guantanamo, by offering to resettle these individuals in Europe," the human rights group said in a statement issued on the eve of an EU-US summit in Slovenia due to be attended by US President George W Bush.

EU member states asked Washington to close the camp in June 2006, but Amnesty International says they should now offer "constructive solutions" aimed at favouring its closure.

According to the group, one of the main obstacles is that many of the detainees cannot be returned to their country of origin because of the risk of torture back home.

"Instead of watching passively, the EU should engage with the US in the search for a solution that will put an end to Guantanamo and the failure of rule of law that it represents. And what better occasion than tomorrow's summit, with President Bush himself?" said Nicolas Beger, Director of Amnesty International's EU office.

Bush's controversial "war on terror" has attracted strong criticism in Europe because of perceived violations of human rights.

On top of the Guantanamo Bay issue, many civil liberty advocates in Europe have turned against "extraordinary rendition" operations - the US practice of apprehending suspect terrorists in foreign countries and then transferring them to territories where they can face torture during interrogations.

In 2005, judges in Italy issued European arrest warrants against CIA agents suspected of kidnapping Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian national, from the streets of Milan in February 2007.

Successive Italian governments have denied any knowledge of the operation and have thwarted efforts by prosecutors to seek the agents' extradition to Italy.

In February of last year, the European Parliament issued a report concluding that 1,245 CIA flights had occurred in European airspace in the four years after 2001.

"The EU has an obligation to raise human rights concerns, particularly when they are so serious," Beger said.

"Improved communication would also help clarify exactly how the CIA has used European territory and airspace to carry out extraordinary renditions, sparing Europe embarrassment in the future," he added. (dpa)