EU in talks with Interpol on political abuse

He said an EU-Interpol committee would "discuss possible improvements of Interpol systems" with the police body at a meeting on 20 November.

Maasikas said Germany and Sweden had asked Estonia, which currently holds the EU presidency, to tackle the subject.

He said "it is important that a proper review takes place of the Red Notice before issuance" and that an "effective redress mechanism exists" for people who end up as Interpol targets.

A Red Notice is an Interpol request for member states to detain and hand over suspects.

The EU concern comes after after Turkey filed Red Notices against a dissident writer and two journalists in Europe - Dogan Akhnali, Hamza Yalcin, and Can Dundar.

Interpol states are not obliged to honour red alerts, but Spain arrested Akhnali and Yalcin while they were visiting the country, where they are now fighting extradition to Turkey.

MEPs said Azerbaijan, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Russia also used Interpol to hunt political adversaries.

"We need to speak out when there are instances of repression and to make sure there are safeguards," Claude Moraes, a centre-left British MEP, said.

He said there should be "necessity and proportionality checks carried out on Red Notices from some countries" to stop "obvious abuses of human rights".

Interpol is an intergovernmental body based in Lyon, France.

It has no outside oversight, but its 1957 charter says Red Notices should not be issued for political, military, religious, or racist motives.

Vera Joureva, the EU commissioner for justice affairs, told MEPs that she was "aware that Interpol's Red Notice system has been used for political purposes".

She said the European Commission had no mandate to influence its work, but she said Interpol was putting in place new rules to stop people who had obtained asylum overseas from being targeted.

Estonia's Maasikas said it would not be practical to hold a full judicial review of each Red Notice case before an alert was issued.

He added that EU states had not made up their mind how the police body should safeguard its work.

"We are in a situation where [EU] member states are members of an international organisation where there is no agreed common EU line or policy", he said.