British agents may have been aware of the “odd case” of torture by CIA officers and may even have been present while waterboarding was happening but a full public inquiry would be a waste of time, Lord West, a former Home Office minister and ex-chief of defence intelligence, has said.

The senior Labour politician said there was no need for a new inquiry despite growing political pressure for a full investigation into British complicity in torture in the wake of a damning report about CIA torture of detainees in the wake of 9/11.