BERLIN, Dec. 6 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did what was expected, many people in Europe said Tuesday, after her meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German officials. She gave reassurances that the United States would not tolerate torture and, while not admitting mistakes, promised to correct any that had been made.

She accompanied that with an impassioned argument for aggressive intelligence gathering, within the law, as an indispensable means of saving lives endangered by an unusually dangerous and unscrupulous foe.

Did anybody believe her on this continent, aroused as rarely before by a raft of reports about secret prisons, C.I.A. flights, allegations of torture and of "renditions," or transfers, of prisoners to third countries so they can be tortured there?

"Yes, I did," Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a conservative member of the German Parliament, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. "The thing I believe is that the United States does obey international law, and Mrs. Merkel said that she believes it too."

Not everybody here is of that view, to say the least. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a more sudden and thorough tarnishing of the Bush administration's credibility than the one taking place here right now. There have been too many reports in the news media about renditions - including one involving an Lebanese-born German citizen, Khaled el- Masri, kidnapped in Macedonia in December 2003 and imprisoned in Afghanistan for several months on the mistaken assumption that he was an associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers - for blanket disclaimers of torture to be widely believed.

"I think what she means is, 'We don't use it as an official way to do things, but we don't look at what is done in other countries,' " Monika Griefahn, a Social Democratic member of Parliament, said in regard to Ms. Rice's comment on torture. "And that's the problem for us."

Ms. Griefahn also expressed skepticism about Ms. Rice's assurance that where mistakes are made - presumably in Mr. Masri's case - the United States will do everything in its power to rectify them. Indeed, Bush administration officials said nothing about rectifying mistakes before reports of Mr. Masri's kidnapping.

"I don't believe they wanted to do anything to rectify the al-Masri case," Ms. Griefahn said.

In Britain, members of Parliament from both parties reacted with even greater skepticism to Ms. Rice's statement, saying it had neither answered their questions nor allayed their concerns about American policy.

"It's clear that the text of the speech was drafted by lawyers with the intention of misleading an audience," Andrew Tyrie, a Conservative member of Parliament, said in an interview. Mr. Tyrie is chairman of a recently formed nonpartisan committee that plans to investigate claims that the British government has tacitly condoned torture by allowing the United States to use its airspace to transport terrorist suspects to countries where they are subsequently tortured.

Parsing through the speech, Mr. Tyrie pointed out example after example where, he said, Ms. Rice was using surgically precise language to obfuscate and distract. By asserting, for instance, that the United States does not send suspects to countries where they "will be" tortured, Ms. Rice is protecting herself, Mr. Tyrie said, leaving open the possibility that they "may be" tortured in those countries.

Others pointed out that the Bush administration's definition of torture did not include practices like water-boarding - in which prisoners are strapped to a board and made to believe they are about to be drowned - that violate provisions of the international Convention Against Torture.

Andrew Mullin, a Labor member of Parliament, said he had found Ms. Rice's assertions "wholly incredible." He agreed with Mr. Tyrie that Ms. Rice's statement had been "carefully lawyered," adding: "It is a matter of record that people have been kidnapped and have been handed over to people who have tortured them. I think their experience has to be matched against the particular form of language the secretary of state is using."

To a great extent, the latest trans-Atlantic brouhaha reflects a very real division between Europe and the United States, reminiscent of the arguments that took place over the Iraq war two years ago. In the view of the Bush administration and its supporters, the Europeans' moral fastidiousness reflects a lack of realism about the nature of the terrorist threat and what needs to be done to defeat it.

The view of Europeans, by contrast, is that they understand the terrorist threat perfectly well, but that the Bush administration's flouting of democratic standards and international law incites more terrorism, not less.

"I resent the fact that my country is foolishly being led into a misguided approach into combating terrorism by this administration," Mr. Tyrie said. "European countries have a far greater experience over many decades dealing with terrorism, and many of us have learned the hard way that dealing in a muscular way can often inflame the very terrorism you're trying to suppress."

In Mr. zu Guttenberg's view, the reports filling both the German and American news media these days and fostering a surge of renewed indignation against the Bush administration are based on unproved allegations and rumors that have been transformed into established fact.

"What's important is that the balance between democratic principles and secret services needs to be maintained," Mr. zu Guttenberg said. "I take it as a reaching out of the hand when she says mistakes have happened and we have to rectify them."

To some Americans at least, the way the charges about secret prisons and C.I.A. flights have gained currency illustrates the readiness of many Europeans always to believe the worst about the United States.

More than one commentator over the last few days has referred to the secret prisons as a Gulag Archipelago, even though Romania and Poland, the countries where the prisons are said to be situated, have denied their existence. Moreover, their total prison population would be at most a few dozen - compared with the hundreds of thousands that were confined in Stalin's real Gulag Archipelago.

The Bush administration's treatment of imprisoned suspected terrorists, coupled with the problems the United States continues to encounter in Iraq and Vice President Dick Cheney's resistance to Congressional curbs on the handling of prisoners, has not made Ms. Rice's job of persuasion any easier.

"The Europeans lack of realism is a big problem, but I'm also frustrated with the inability of the United States to behave like a successful big power," said John Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany and now director of the investment bank Lazard Frères in Germany.

He added that "the Europeans do have this propensity" to put the worst possible interpretation on American actions, "but unfortunately, we have given credibility to that sort of behavior."

To some extent, the comment by Ms. Rice that seems to have had the most effect in Europe was her statement made in Washington on Monday that many governments have cooperated with the United States on intelligence gathering.

That remark did not so much reassure European commentators that the United States was abiding by international treaties as it has led them to accuse their own governments of hypocrisy, silently acquiescing in American practices while publicly criticizing them.

"If the European services knew," the Italian daily La Repubblica said Tuesday, referring to the reports of secret prisons and C.I.A. flights in Europe, "how is it possible that the governments and the parliaments, which these services must answer to, weren't informed?

Sarah Lyall contributed reporting from London for this article.

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BUCHAREST, Romania, Dec. 6 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was pelted with questions on Tuesday about covert prisons and a mistaken, secret arrest, as she grappled with what has become an incendiary issue in Europe. She declined to answer most of them in two European capitals.

Europe has been roiled by reports that the United States maintained secret jails for terror suspects in Europe, and by residual anger over the American practice of rendition, or secretly transferring terrorism suspects to the custody of third countries, including some outside Europe that routinely use torture.

The anger has made it harder for Ms. Rice to repair already strained relations with many European nations at odds with American policy on Iraq, like Germany, where she met in Berlin with the new chancellor, Angela Merkel, hoping for a fresh start. But the issue confronted her repeatedly.

Mrs. Merkel said at a news conference that Ms. Rice had admitted making a mistake when the United States abducted a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, on suspicions of terrorism and held him in detention for five months. But aides to Ms. Rice scrambled to deny that, saying instead that Ms. Rice had said only that if mistakes were made, they would be corrected.

Mr. Masri filed suit in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday against the former director of central intelligence and three companies he charged were involved in secret flights carrying terrorism suspects. He has said he was tortured during his detention. He also said that on Sunday he was denied entry to the United States, where he hoped to file his lawsuit in person.

State Department officials confirmed that he had been denied entry, but said that he would be allowed into the country if he applied again. [Page A25.]

As Europeans continue to investigate whether torture or detention of terrorism suspects took place on European soil, Ms. Rice assured Mrs. Merkel that "the United States does not condone torture."

"It is against U.S. law to be involved in torture or conspiracy to commit torture," Ms. Rice said. "And it is also against U.S. international obligations."

But the American definition of torture is in some cases at variance with international conventions, and the administration has maintained in recent years that American law does not apply to prisoners held abroad.

In defending the practice of rendition, American officials have said that they obtain assurances from the third countries that prisoners will not be tortured, but that the United States is limited in its ability to enforce the promises.

The Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general found last year that the some aspects of the agency's treatment of terrorism detainees might constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as the international Convention Against Torture defines it. The United States is a signer of that convention, though with some reservations.

A legal opinion by the Justice Department, issued in August 2002, said interrogation methods just short of those that might cause pain comparable to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death" could be allowable without being considered torture.

The administration disavowed that classified legal opinion in the summer of 2004, after it was publicly disclosed. But a second legal opinion issued in December 2004, which defined torture more broadly, did not repudiate interrogation techniques that had been previously authorized. It remains unclear how many of those techniques are still in use by the C.I.A.

Congress is debating an amendment, passed in the Senate last month, that would prohibit the abusive treatment of terrorism suspects. But the White House has urged that the C.I.A. be exempted from any such ban.

In Romania, Ms. Rice signed a military cooperation agreement that would allow American forces to train with Romanian troops at the Mihael Kogalniceanu air base, which Human Rights Watch identified as a probable location of one secret prison.

Asked about the charge at a news conference, Traian Basescu, the Romanian president, vociferously denied that any such detention center existed and invited anyone who doubted that to come and see for himself.

During the news conference in Germany, Mrs. Merkel spoke openly about matters the Bush administration deems secret, while Mr. Rice continued to speak elliptically. That produced some awkward moments.

Mrs. Merkel spoke openly of "the issue of the C.I.A.'s overflights" that apparently hold secret detainees going to or from secret jails elsewhere, while Ms. Rice refused to answer most questions and continued insisting that the prison issue and related issues were classified matters.

Mrs. Merkel then said Ms. Rice had admitted that the United States had mistakenly abducted Mr. Masri.

"The American administration has admitted that this man had been erroneously taken and that, as such, the American administration is not denying that it has taken place," Mrs. Merkel said.

Ms. Rice said she could not talk about the case specifically, but added, "Any policy will sometimes result in error, and when it happens we do everything we can to correct it."

Later, an aide to Ms. Rice, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said that "we are not sure what was in her head" when Mrs. Merkel spoke of the American admission of error in the Masri case. Ms. Rice did not discuss the case with her in any direct way, he and other aides insisted, even though the senior aide said, "The American government has talked about this issue with the German government."

Mrs. Merkel said simply, "We've talked about Mr. Masri."

Speaking of Mr. Masri and the issue of the detainees in general, Mrs. Merkel added, "We can't go public about all the details, but at the same time we need to introduce a certain degree of transparency."

After the mistaken arrest was discovered, the United States asked Germany to keep it secret, and Germany complied. Asked about that, Ms. Rice said, "Intelligence matters need to be handled sensitively."

Before leaving Washington on Monday morning, Ms. Rice issued a long, unapologetic statement on the secret-prison issue, which has become the subject of many investigations in Europe, while refusing to acknowledge that the prisons exist.

Aides said she was no more forthcoming in her talks with Mrs. Merkel.

Asked about Ms. Rice's statement in Washington, Mrs. Merkel said it was "a good basis on which we build," but added, "As chancellor, I work under and adhere to German laws." She announced that the intelligence committee of the German Parliament would take up the Masri case.

Even though aides to Ms. Rice said they realized that the secret-prison issue would dominate a good part of her trip, at times she has shown exasperation over the debate.

"We have an obligation to defend our people, and we will use every lawful means to do so," she declared in Berlin, adding that the public debate over the secret prisons ought to include "a healthy respect for the challenges we face" fighting terrorism.

The questions on the secret prisons posed to her and Mr. Basescu here in Bucharest came from the American reporters traveling with her. The Romanians asked about the new defense agreement. It would allow 1,500 American troops to be stationed at the air base on a rotating basis to take part in joint exercises and training. About 100 of those servicemen would be stationed there full time.

Mr. Basescu greeted the new agreement with unbridled enthusiasm, saying it shows that "the Romanian force has reached the potential that it can be a partner of the United States."