BRUSSELS, Belgium – A European Parliament investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons could ask Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to testify, although it has no legal power to subpoena them, a member of the panel said yesterday.

“Very senior people” would be asked to answer the allegations of human rights violations on E.U. territory, a vice president of an investigation into the alleged prisons being conducted by the parliament, Sarah Ludford, said.

“I don’t see why we should not invite Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney,” Ms. Ludford said. “I’m sure they would be very welcome and they would be heard with great interest, or Condoleezza Rice perhaps, why not?”

Ms. Ludford, a British Liberal Democrat party member, acknowledged that the parliament had no legal power to subpoena them.

“I would not be over optimistic, but I don’t think it’s completely off the planet to think that they might come to see us,” she said.

The parliament committee held its first meeting yesterday, electing a Portuguese conservative, Carlos Coelho, as its president.

“I hope that we will be inviting very senior people from governments, from non-governmental organizations and people who have knowledge of the intelligence community,” Ms. Ludford said. “If they are seen not to cooperate then I think we can draw conclusions.”

The 732-member E.U. legislature agreed two weeks ago to launch its own investigation.

Allegations the CIA hid and interrogated key Al Qaeda suspects at Soviet-era compounds in Eastern Europe were first reported November 2 in the Washington Post.

Human Rights Watch has said it has circumstantial evidence indicating the CIA transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania. Both countries have denied any involvement.

Secret prisons on European territory and extraordinary rendition – the practice of transporting criminals or terror suspects to countries where harsh interrogation methods are permitted – would breach human rights treaties which all E.U. countries signed up to.

The work of the 46-member committee is the first inquiry conducted by the European Union. Several E.U. countries have launched their own investigations, as has the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights watchdog.

The E.U. parliament committee was given a mandate to find out whether the CIA or other American agencies or other countries carried out abductions, extraordinary rendition, detention at secret sites, and torture of prisoners in E.U. countries or have used E.U. countries to transfer prisoners.

“It’s high time we start the investigation,” a German Socialist, Wolfgang Kriessl-Doerfler, said. “I assume that all governments have an interest to cooperate with us, to clear up the questions”