On Sunday, the New York Times broke the shocking tale of Lebanese-born German national Khaled El-Masri, a salesman, whose vacation turned into a living hell. After a row with his wife, El-Masri hopped on a tourist coach headed for Skopje and was horrified to find himself detained by Macedonian border guards, accused of terrorism.

As the bus pulled away, El-Masri knew he was in deep trouble. He was taken to a motel where he was held with a gun to his head and asked to sign a paper admitting his terrorist affiliations. When 23-days later he still refused to do so, he was set free.

Just as the thwarted vacationer was savoring the first heady moments of liberty, he was grabbed, thrown into a pick-up, hooded and driven to an airport.

There, he was beaten before his clothes were cut off when he was photographed while naked by individuals wearing black clothes and masks. Made to don a "blue warm-up suit" he was once again blindfolded and handcuffed before being put on a plane to Afghanistan.

His ruthless captors knocked him out with an injection and he woke up inside a filthy Kabul prison cell. Four months later, he was released without charge and flown to Albania from where he made his own way back to Germany.

Both Amnesty International and various German authorities, including a chief prosecutor find El-Masri's tale credible as certain facts check out. Furthermore, under 17 hours of questioning, his story never wavered. When asked who he believes is behind his kidnapping, he said "the Americans". Both the CIA and the FBI have refused to either deny or confirm his account.

El-Masri's description of the way he was treated at the airport prior to being flown to Afghanistan matches with that of Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen who was imprisoned in Pakistan before being flown by the US to Egypt for interrogation and then on to Guantanamo, says Amnesty.

The account of British national Tarek Dergoul, reported to Human Rights Watch, is also strangely similar. Dergoul says he was photographed naked at Kandahar airport before being taken to Guantanamo.

Another British former detainee Shafiq Rasul told Human Rights Watch how his clothes were cut off with scissors before he was covered with delousing powder and given orange overalls. Neither Dergoul nor Rasul were ever charged with anything and upon repatriation to the UK were released from custody.

A British father of four young children, still being held in solitary at Guantanamo, Moazzem Begg was abducted by Pakistani agents from his home, bundled into the boot of a vehicle, and handed to Americans, who took him first to Bagram where he allegedly witnessed the deaths of two fellow detainees at the hands of US interrogators. Without human contact or any prospect of freedom, Begg is said by his father to be slowly going mad.

For anyone with any sense of justice or belief in basic human rights, these reports are chilling to the core. Khaled El-Masri is being cited as a victim of mistaken identity and yet he is seemingly without legal recourse.

If the US refuses to admit it was behind El-Masri's abduction, then there is, surely, little he can do. After all, the Macedonian authorities got themselves off the hook by releasing him on to the street. How can he prove that Macedonia was complicit in his kidnapping?

For those with Muslim names traveling on business or for leisure the implications are great, especially when it comes to people with dual nationality, who sometimes shorten their names on passports issued by their adoptive country.

For instance, an Egyptian-born British businessman friend traveled to Lebanon using his UK passport. Beirut Airport immigration asked him to give his full name, which did not appear on his British travel document. He was told three persons with the same names were wanted. Luckily, he was also carrying his Egyptian passport in which his very lengthy name was written in full, and was waved politely through.

Indeed, the US accused a Saudi pilot of being one of the 9/11 hijackers before it was discovered he was on a training course in Tunisia at the time of the attacks. It is clear that the so-called US "intelligence" services simply cannot get their heads around the nuances of Arab and Muslim names.

Mistaken identity aside, it is surely outrageous that government agents are going around the world kidnapping people and, in some cases, on behalf of other governments. What happened to extradition proceedings? What happened to the rule of law? What happened to common human decency?

We can't be sure who was responsible for kidnapping El-Masri but I would put money on the US especially as it isn't denying anything. Given that the modus operandi used to abduct the unfortunate German has been well reported in other cases, the circumstantial evidence is glaring.

If that is the case, then the Bush administration is mirroring the Cosa Nostra or Sardinian bandits with those governments who cooperate with such tactics little better than its cowering henchmen.

Governments are there to protect their own citizens, whether elected or otherwise. They are not supposed to work against them. Canada, for example, was incensed when one of its own citizens Syrian-born Maher Arar was detained while transiting through New York and packed off to Damascus against his will.

Arar was a model citizen with a master's degree in telecommunications, who had lived in Canada since he was 17 years old. But that did not save him from humiliation, beatings, torture and almost a year's imprisonment.

Unless states, particularly Arab and Muslim states, get together to stand up to the US with the interests of their citizens at heart, it may get to the stage where their nationals become reluctant to travel.

With America poised to appoint Alberto Gonzalez of "torture memo" infamy, as attorney general, things can only get worse. This is a man who once referred to the Geneva Conventions as "quaint". It is surely time to act before international human rights and freedom of the traveling individual suffer a similar miserable fate.

- Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback. at [email protected]