Brussels - Officials in Brussels said Monday they are confident that the United States has not abused its ability to access European banking records as part of its global fight against terrorism.

However, officials would not reveal how much data has been accessed by US investigators, nor would they provide examples of how such an arrangement has produced what they describe as "significant value in the fight against terrorism."

"I am pleased to confirm that the United States Treasury Department has been vigilant from the outset in respecting the safeguards in the handling of personal data," said Jacques Barrot, the top justice official at the European Commission.

The controversy erupted in 2006, when the US media reported that the George W Bush administration had obtained access to European bank transfers operated by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a Belgian industry-owned system which each day handles trillions of dollars worth of money transfers between thousands of financial institutions.

In March 2008, the European Union tasked Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere with reviewing the practice amid widespread concerns that the US might access the data for other motives, including industrial espionage.

Bruguiere, who has since made a number of visits to Washington, said he had compiled a "very positive" confidential report reassuring the European Commission and the European Parliament that "sophisticated" protection mechanisms had been put in place by the US Treasury.

"The fight against terrorism is like a jigsaw puzzle, and it is important to have all the pieces of the puzzle in place," Bruguiere said when asked why it was necessary to allow US officials to snoop into European bank transfers.

The reasons why concerned Europeans should rest assured include the fact that the United States has agreed that access to SWIFT data should be granted exclusively for counterterrorism purposes, that the extraction of data will be minimized, and that unnecessary data will be promptly deleted.

According to a 2007 document drafted by EU government ministers, "substantially less than 1 percent" of SWIFT messages furnished to the US Treasury Department had been accessed at the time," and only because those messages have been directly responsive to a targeted, terrorism-related search."

The EU-US agreement followed the implementation by the United States of a Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme, which was approved by the then Bush administration in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Judge Bruguiere said he planned to update his report on a regular basis. (dpa)