US and UK spy agencies built close ties with their Libyan counterparts during the so-called War on Terror, according to documents discovered at the office of Col Gaddafi's former spy chief.
The papers suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 and handed them to Tripoli.The UK's MI6 also apparently gave the Gaddafi regime details of dissidents.
The documents have not been seen by the BBC and have not been independently verified.
Meanwhile, the head of Libya's interim governing body, the National Transitional Council, said its soldiers were laying siege to towns still held by Col Gaddafi's forces.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil said Sirte, Bani Walid, Jufrah and Sabha were being given humanitarian aid, but had one week to surrender.
'Protecting Americans' Thousands of pieces of correspondence from US and UK officials were uncovered by reporters and activists in an office apparently used by Moussa Koussa, who served for years as Col Gaddafi's spy chief before becoming foreign minister.
Rights groups have long accused him of involvement in atrocities, and had called on the UK to arrest him at the time.
Human Rights Watch, whose workers helped to discover the papers, accused the CIA of condoning torture.
"It wasn't just abducting suspected Islamic militants and handing them over to the Libyan intelligence," said Peter Bouckaert of HRW.
"The CIA also sent the questions they wanted Libyan intelligence to ask and, from the files, it's very clear they were present in some of the interrogations themselves," he said.
The papers outline the rendition of several suspects, including one that Human Rights Watch has identified as Abdel Hakim Belhaj, known in the documents as Abdullah al-Sadiq, who is now the military commander of the anti-Gaddafi forces in Tripoli.
The Americans snatched him in South East Asia before flying him to Tripoli in 2004, the documents claim.
Mr Belhaj, who was involved in an Islamist group attempting to overthrow Col Gaddafi in the early 2000s, had told the Associated Press news agency earlier this week that he had been rendered by the Americans, but held no grudge.The CIA would not comment on the specifics of the allegations.
Spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said: "It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats."
The documents also reveal details about the UK's relationship with the Gaddafi regime.
The UK intelligence agency apparently helped to write a speech for Col Gaddafi in 2004, when the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair was encouraging the colonel to give up his weapons programme.
And British officials also insisted that Mr Blair's famous 2004 meeting with Col Gaddafi should be in his Bedouin tent, according to the UK's Independent newspaper, whose journalists also discovered the documents.
"[The prime minister's office is] keen that the prime minister meet the leader in his tent," the paper quotes a memo from an MI6 agent as saying.
"I don't know why the English are fascinated by tents. The plain fact is the journalists would love it."
In another memo, also seen by the Independent, UK intelligence appeared to give Tripoli details of a Libyan dissident who had been freed from jail in Britain.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague played down the revelations, telling Sky News that they "relate to a period under the previous government so I have no knowledge of those, of what was happening behind the scenes at that time".
Mr Blair and US President George W Bush lobbied hard to bring Col Gaddafi out of international isolation in the years after the 9/11 attacks, as Libya moved to normalise relations with former enemies in the West.
Bani Walid In a press conference in Benghazi, Mr Jalil said four Gaddafi-held towns had one week to surrender "to avoid further bloodshed".
However, one anti-Gaddafi commander, Abdulrazzak Naduri, told AFP that Bani Walid had until just 08:00 on Sunday or face military action.
The Tripoli commander, Mr Belhaj, said there were few loyalists in Bani Walid and that one civilian group approaching it had found checkpoints unmanned.
Col Gaddafi's whereabouts remain unconfirmed. Mr Naduri said Col Gaddafi's son Saadi was still believed to be in Bani Walid but that another, Saif al-Islam, had left.
The NTC is stepping up its efforts at reconstruction, setting up a supreme security council to protect Tripoli.
Ian Martin, a special envoy to the UN secretary general, arrived in Libya's capital on Saturday to try to boost international efforts in the country's redevelopment.
Mr Jalil also announced tough measures to crack down on corruption in Libya's institutions.
But he said the leadership would not now move from Benghazi to Tripoli until next week.
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