London, Nov. 20 The CIA reportedly used a horse riding school in Lithuania as a secret prison to hold and interrogate top al-Qaeda terrorists.

According to The Telegraph, the CIA built the secret jail in 2004 and used it for more than a year, flying in at least eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists from Afghanistan.

The prison was reportedly built from scratch on the territory of a former horse riding school about 15 miles from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, and included an underground annex.

According to locals, the suspected former CIA jail had no windows, and was surrounded by a fence and CCTV cameras.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite insisted the claims would be properly investigated.

"If this is true, Lithuania has to clean up, accept responsibility, apologise, and promise that it will never happen again," she said.

Lithuania has said it will not accept a single former prisoner from the Guantanamo Bay prison until the matter is clarified.

The allegations make Lithuania the third European country after Poland and Romania to be accused of hosting secret CIA "black sites".

According to the US officials, Lithuania was eager to please the Bush administration at the time in order to thank it for securing Lithuania membership of Nato in 2002. (ANI)