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Commentators dissect the plans for an inquiry intoÌýallegations that MI6 was involved in the rendition of Libyan terror suspects.

the planned Gibson inquiry will not be enough:

"New allegations of rendition and complicity and torture will be investigated by Sir Peter Gibson's existing inquiry into the treatment of British detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Do we seriously think this inquiry will be able to address the mounting allegations that the last government, and Mr Blair in particular, succoured and promoted one of the nastiest regimes in the world?
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"If we can have numerous inquiries into the state of the British Press, we can surely manage a single one that examines Tony Blair's friendly dealings with a man who is now an indicted war criminal, as well investigating torture, rendition, al-Megrahi's release, training of Gaddafi's special forces, links with Libyan intelligence, and sales of weapons intended for repression. If only David Cameron had the guts for it!"

The legal officer for Liberty that there is going to be a separate inquiry - the Detainee Inquiry - but is disparaging about both:

"The Evidence Protocol for the inquiry, published in July this year, makes it clear that there will be a presumption that secret documents remain so, and the crucial final word on whether material can be made public rests not with Sir Peter but with the Cabinet Secretary, the Government's chief civil servant. Further, it has been confirmed that the only involvement of the detainees themselves would be in submitting a statement of their allegations. They will not see the majority of the government's evidence and will not be allowed to put questions to those allegedly complicit in their abuse - even by way of their legal representatives. These fundamental flaws have led all non-governmental organisations working on these issues, including Liberty, and the detainees themselves, to boycott the process.
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"So, unless there is a wholesale rethink of the Detainee Inquiry, it cannot possibly achieve the original aims of getting to the bottom of what happened and restoring the reputation of our security services. Frankly, it is hard to see the point of wasting precious public money on it."

Conversely the the latest allegations about Libyan links can be sufficiently investigated in the Gibson inquiry and gives some further suggestions for what could be considered:

"It is essential, not just for British diplomacy, but for our standing and self-knowledge as a nation, to establish exactly how closely the government - and if not the government, then the agencies of state - collaborated with President Bush's post-9/11 'war on terror', and into what byways of iniquity they might have been led. Was the supposedly ethical foreign policy suborned by methods that were the very opposite?
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"These are matters for the Gibson inquiry. That such an inquiry should be necessary at all, however, demonstrates how inadequate existing oversight of the security services is."

why the key question to answer is whether MI6 collusion with Gaddafi's secret police was sanctioned by a minister:

"Under the 1994 Intelligence Services Act, British spies committing acts abroad, which if committed here would be illegal, must seek authorisation from a senior minister, in effect the foreign secretary.
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"Whitehall officials close to the spooks say that foreign secretaries over the past few years have signed off some 500 such acts a year. So the question is, was collusion with Gaddafi's torturers sanctioned by Jack Straw, or David Miliband, or Tony Blair, the prime minister who instigated the bizarre love affair with the dictator in 2003? And even if it was, would this make it all legal?"

that the inquiry needs to establish whether the documents are genuine:

"While these revelations have made for some sensational headlines this week, with Mr Cameron yesterday calling for them to be examined by an independent inquiry, it is important not to lose sight of one of the first principles of the shadowy world of espionage: things are never as clear-cut as they seem.
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"It is, after all, perfectly feasible that these documents were deliberately abandoned by Gaddafi's former henchmen as an act of sabotage to discredit the reputation of the West's leading intelligence agencies, and embroil them in yet another round of costly litigation. Yesterday, Hizb ut-Tahrir, one of Britain's most radical Islamist groups, lost no time in condemning the Government's 'collusion with Gaddafi's torturers'."

Finally, regardless of what is found in the inquiry, that unwanted consequences will still be felt by the British:

"But here's the rub: Abdel Hakim Belhadj, the Libyan dissident sent to Colonel Gaddafi's prisons with British connivance, ended up training the most effective of the rebel fighters. He is widely regarded as the man to watch. And he has no love of the British. Something worth bearing in mind, perhaps, the next time there is a meeting at the Travellers Club."