[JURIST] UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw [official profile] said Tuesday that a records search conducted by the British government seeking US rendition requests has found three instances where the Clinton administration sought permission to transport prisoners through its airspace. The report comes after a government statement in December [JURIST report] claimed that the UK had no records of requests made by the current administration for similar rendition flights. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] has been accused of running secret prisons [JURIST report] in Eastern Europe and covertly transporting detainees in a controversial practice referred to as extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive]. Two of the three requests were approved and Straw said that the records search covered "all relevant records back to May 1997" when the current British government took office. AP has more.