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BERLIN -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aggressively defended U.S. tactics against terrorism on Monday as tough but legal, and countered European complaints over reports of secret CIA-run prisons there by saying America's efforts with its allies have been "a two-way street" that have saved European and American lives.

Commencing a five-day visit to a Europe that has seethed with resentment over the reports of U.S. prisons and detainee mistreatment, Rice delivered the Bush administration's most forceful response to a month of growing trans-Atlantic acrimony.

She also went further than others in the Bush administration to insist that Americans do not practice torture or lesser forms of cruel treatment.

"Our people, wherever they are, are operating under U.S. law and U.S. international obligations," Rice said. She said that includes the U.N. Convention Against Torture, a document the administration has previously said does not fully apply to Americans overseas.

"Some governments choose to cooperate with the United States" in intelligence and other arenas, Rice said before she left for Europe. "That cooperation is a two-way street. We share intelligence that has helped protect European countries from attack, saving European lives."

Her comments seemed to imply that if any European governments provided secret prisons, they did so willingly.

Rice did not elaborate on how lives were saved. But White House spokesman Scott McClellan referred reporters to an Oct. 6 statement by President Bush that the United States and its allies had foiled 10 serious plots by the al-Qaida terror network in the past four years.

At the time, the White House said those counted several attempted strikes in Europe, including plans to bomb sites in Britain in mid-2004, attack London's Heathrow Airport using hijacked commercial airliners in 2003 and carry out a large-scale bombing in Britain in spring 2004.

Throughout Monday, Rice refused any outright answer to the underlying question European governments have asked: Did the United States run clandestine detention sites on the continent?

"Were I to confirm or deny, say yes or say no, then I would be compromising intelligence information, and I'm not going to do that," she said on her plane to Germany.

The European Union has asked for an explanation of U.S. actions, as have individual European allies concerned that their airports, territory or air space may have been used for detention or transport of suspects under conditions illegal in Europe. The continent's top human rights watchdog is investigating.

In Berlin, a government spokesman said Monday that Germany would ask Rice about its list of more than 400 flights and landings in Germany by planes suspected of being used by the CIA.

The European Union's justice commissioner says covert prisons and detainee mistreatment would violate European human rights law, and he warned last week that any host countries could lose voting rights in the powerful 25-nation bloc.

A November report in The Washington Post said that the CIA ran a network of hidden prisons, including some in Eastern European democracies. The story and its aftermath have rekindled opposition to President Bush and his foreign policy in Europe and have threatened to fray diplomatic ties that Rice has tried to forge this year.

The advocacy group Human Rights Watch followed the news report with claims that it has tracked suspicious CIA flights around Europe since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. The group pointed to sites in Poland and Romania as probable hosts for secret prisons, but both those nations have denied it.

Rice's trip was planned before the controversy broke, and her words Monday were an attempt to keep the issue from completely overshadowing her other business. She put the onus to articulate terrorism policies partly on the shoulders of European allies who also are threatened by al-Qaida.

At the same time, she made the point that aggressive work to counter potential terrorists can be uncomfortable for democracies.

"The captured terrorists of the 21st century do not fit easily into traditional systems of criminal or military justice," she said. "We need to adapt."

Information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies from a "very small number of extremely dangerous detainees" has helped prevent terrorist attacks in several countries, Rice said.

"The United States has fully respected the sovereignty of other countries that have cooperated in these matters," she said. "The United States is a country of laws."

Rice's itinerary Tuesday includes a stop in Romania where, by chance, she is to sign a defense agreement related to the military base identified by Human Rights Watch.

Bush has said the United States does not allow torture, but the administration has permitted harsh interrogation techniques at the Guantanamo Bay military prison camp and elsewhere that human rights organizations say violate the U.N. treaty. One widely cited method is "waterboarding," in which prisoners are strapped to a plank and dunked repeatedly.

The 1994 treaty obligates nations to try to prevent cruelty that does not meet the legal definition of torture. Vice President Dick Cheney has led a lobbying effort against an attempt by Sen. John McCain to expressly forbid such practices under U.S. law.

Human rights organizations and legal groups, both in the U.S. and abroad, have also accused the United States of allowing a practice known as "rendition to torture," in which suspects are taken to countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia where harsh interrogation methods are used.

Rice denied it.

"The United States does not use the air space or airport of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee when we believe he or she will be tortured," she said.

That declaration was welcomed by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. He said, "All of us must work together -- within the rule of law -- to use every tool at out disposal to deal with the threat of terrorism."

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