Ghost Busters!

He may not have the same line in brightly coloured bandanas – but Romano Prodi is stamping his authority on the Italian presidency, and sending a message to the Bush administration that Italian-US relations are not going to continue as before.

So keen is Prodi to make his point that he has arrested two senior Italian secret service agents, and issued arrest warrants for four CIA agents, for their part in the kidnapping of radical Muslim cleric Abu Omar, and his subsequent 'extraordinary rendition' to Egypt.

This represents a pretty significant volte face in Italian policy; state prosecutors had issued arrest warrants for 26 alleged US spooks under the Berlusconi administration – which promptly refused to request the extradition of the named agents from Washington and effectively blocked the prosecution.

Clipping the wings of anything belonging to the US is bound to be a popular move in pretty much any EU country at the moment,; and EU parlimentarians are out for blood on this issue. Having been vociferous in their criticism of the US war in Iraq, most of Western Europe appears to have been caught napping by the fact that terror suspects were being transported through their airspace and airports.

Green MEP's Cem Ozdemir of Germany and Raul Romeva of Spain were leading the hunt yesterday, saying in a statement," now that the Italian administration has begun to treat these charges with the seriousness they deserve, all other member states must follow suit and cooperate completely with the ongoing investigations."

Not everyone is happy with the decision to pursue the arrest warrants. Souad Sbai, the leader of the Confederation of Moroccans in Italy, described the arrest of the two Italian intelligence officers as "a defeat for moderate Islam", and ruefully predicted that "for Islamic militants this is a great victory. Now many extremists who left Italy will be encouraged to return to their mosques."

His comments were echoed by MEP Jas Gawronski, of Berlusconi's Forza Italia Party, who claimed "Osama Bin Laden is happy. In my country today, instead of arresting terrorists we're arresting those who are hunting terrorists."

Other MEP's clearly had more pressing concerns than the morality of rendition, with Irish MEP Séan Ó Neachtain lambasting the Council of Europe's report on rendition, and lamenting the fact that Shannon airport had lost a $10m contract with the US military as a result of the negative publicity.

The two Italian secret service agents arrested have both protested their innocence, and expressed their confidence that the justice system will acquit them. Weather they, or anyone else, has confidence that US agents will be available to face similar justice is unknown at the time of posting.