PORTLAND - U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer is calling for an investigation into a Portland company that owns a sleek executive jet which has reportedly been used by the CIA to ferry alleged terrorists to countries that are believed to torture prisoners.

Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC is the registered owner of a multimillion-dollar Gulfstream V that's been spotted at airports around the world being boarded by hooded and handcuffed prisoners. Human rights groups claim the plane - which critics have nicknamed "Air CIA" and "The Guantanamo Express" - is a key piece of what they say is the U.S. government's "torture by proxy" program.

On the floor of the House of Representatives Tuesday, Blumenauer called Bayard Foreign Marketing a tool used to hide the transfer of prisoners to brutal regimes.

"This took on a decidely local flavor for me as press accounts came out that a shadowy - perhaps illegal - dummy front company, Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, was used to transport these people," he said.

Blumenauer said that he is "horrified that the United States would be lumped into the same categories as countries we are trying to encourage to honor human rights. Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia look to be countries where we have allowed people - or sent them - to be tortured."

On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told reporters that before the United States hands over terror suspects to foreign governments, it receives assurances that they will not be tortured. But he acknowledged that after a transfer, the United States has little control.

Blumenauer said it would be naive to assume that detainees sent for interrogation to countries such as Egypt would not be tortured.

The flight path of the jet has been reported by The Sunday Times of London and CBS-News 60 Minutes, and it includes landings in Egypt, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.

For example, on Dec. 18, 2001, in a case under investigation by Sweden and by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, the plane, whose tail number was N379P, was used to bring Egyptian nationals Muhammed Alzery and Ahmed Agiza from Stockholm to Cairo. The two were seeking political asylum in Sweden, but were wanted in Egypt on terror charges.

Swedish officials say they agreed to hand over the men to U.S. agents after promises they would be treated humanely. But at Stockholm's Bromma Airport, American officials wearing black masks allegedly took the two into a small room and cut off their clothes with scissors, one strip at a time, according to Swedish officials.

"I can understand that for security purposes one may need to take off the clothes of a suspect - but it can be done with some level of decency. I don't know what the purpose of this could have been other than to intimidate them," said Mats Melin, chief ombudsman of the Swedish Parliament, who has been charged with investigating the incident.

Lawyers for the two men charge that when they landed in Cairo, they were taken to a jail and tortured with live wires attached to their genitals. Algiza was convicted of terrorism related charges; Alzery was set free.

News reports have also tied the plane to the disappearance of a 27-year-old Yemeni microbiology student, who was wanted in connection with the bombing of the USS. Cole.

From 1999 to 2004, the jet was owned by a Massachusetts firm. Premier Executive Transport Services, located in Dedham, Mass., lists a Bryan P. Dyess as president. He has only two known addresses, both post office boxes in Arlington, Va. Then, on Nov. 16, 2004, two days after a story in the Sunday Times linked the jet to the alleged torture, the plane was sold to Bayard Foreign Marketing and its tail number was changed to N44982, according to records filed with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Bayard Foreign Marketing's only executive listed in 2004 filings with the state of Oregon is a Leonard T. Bayard. Extensive public record searches for Bayard failed to discover any Social Security number, date of birth, telephone number or residential history.

The company's address in the 2004 annual report is the law office of Portland attorney Scott Caplan, listed as the company's registered agent.

Asked earlier whether his client is a real person, Caplan replied: "No comment." He did not return repeated calls seeking additional comment Tuesday.

A CIA spokeswoman, who declined to provide her name, also declined to comment on the alleged link between Bayard Foreign Marketing and the torture of suspected terrorists.

Blumenauer said on the House floor Tuesday that the corporation appeared to have been "organized in violation of Oregon law in order to hide the true nature and breadth of this extraordinary rendition program."

"It's crying out for congressional oversight," he said.

The congressman made his request for an investigation official in a letter to Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the House International Relations Committee. Blumenauer said he has contacted Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers to see whether Oregon can initiate its own investigation into the legality of Bayard Foreign Marketing.

Kevin Neely, a spokesman for Myers, said that registering a corporation under a false name is a crime in Oregon. If Leonard T. Bayard does not exist, then the company and its officers could be charged with providing false statements, he said.

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Associated Press writer Typh Tucker contributed to this report.