Solicitor General Wayne Easter raised the prospect yesterday that foreign intelligence agencies operating in Canada obtained a rental lease for the former Ottawa home of Maher Arar through illegal means, which led to his deportation to a Syrian prison where he was tortured for 10 months.

Mr. Arar has said he never gave a copy of the 1997 rental agreement to anyone and Roger Greenberg, the proprietor of the giant Minto real estate company that owns the townhouse where the Arars used to live, said he did not provide the document to the RCMP or any other law enforcement agency.

U.S. officials produced the lease when they arrested Mr. Arar at New York's JFK Airport last year because of alleged links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network. The lease was witnessed by Abdullah Almalki, an Ottawa man accused of terrorist links who has also been tortured by the Syrians and remains in a Damascus prison.

Mr. Easter told reporters yesterday he did not know how the Americans obtained the lease, but said it did not come from the RCMP, and might have been obtained by foreign intelligence agencies.

"That particular document, there are multi-intelligence agencies involved in these matters," he said.

"Just because it happens to be a lease does not necessarily mean it came from Canadian sources," he said. "Of course, I'm worried about it. I'm always concerned about illegal matters."

Asked if U.S. authorities might have broken into either Mr. Arar's home or Minto's Ottawa offices to get the document, Mr. Easter said: "As I've indicated, there are multi-intelligence agencies involved in terms of the exchange of information ... I don't know how that lease was obtained."

Mr. Greenberg, president of Minto Developments, said the company did not release the document to anyone and would only do so through a court order or a search warrant. Mr. Arar, who had the only other copy, said he did not provide it to anyone either.

Beth Poisson, a U.S. Embassy official, said it is up to "Mr. Easter to explain what he means."

However, Mr. Easter said the RCMP are not investigating whether the law was breached to obtain the key rental document that was later used by the U.S. authorities to deport Mr. Arar to Syria. Mr. Easter said he has launched an internal investigation to determine whether there are leaks out of the RCMP or the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the case will be also be examined by the RCMP's Public Complaints Commission.

"I would hope from that process that we find the answers that we want," he said.

Kerry Pither, a spokesman for the Arar family, said Mr. Easter's "disturbing" statement reinforces the need for a full-blown public inquiry to determine how a Canadian citizen could end up in a Syrian prison, where he was tortured with electrical cords, beaten and kept in a tiny, dark cell called the grave.

"That is a very, very serious and disturbing allegation," she said. "If there are foreign intelligence officials doing this kind of work in Canada, then that is another reason why a public inquiry is need."

However, Ms. Pither said she suspects Mr. Easter is trying to deflect attention from the role the RCMP and CSIS may have played in providing intelligence to the U.S.

"Frankly, the RCMP and CSIS need this inquiry as much as Maher Arar does because the allegations are that they circumvented the rule of law in Canada, using the United States to deport a Canadian citizen because they couldn't do it," she said.

NDP Leader Jack Layton also renewed calls for a public inquiry, saying Canadians need to know if U.S. intelligence or other spy agencies broke the law in Canada to obtain Mr. Arar's rental agreement.

"This is yet another disturbing, apparent invasion of someone's privacy that resulted in a foreign country sending a Canadian citizen to the most horrible experience imaginable," he said. "This is astonishing and it is yet another reason for a full-fledged inquiry."

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has refused to hold a public investigation because the matter is being examined by the Public Complaints Commission, although he opened the door yesterday to an inquiry if the U.S. provides evidence of Canadian complicity in Mr. Arar's deportation.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has been asked to provide the names of Canadian law enforcement moles who he claims gave intelligence to the U.S. on Mr. Arar.

"The only accusation has come from the secretary of state for the United States who said Canadians were involved. It is my judgment to say so and if there was no Canadian involved it is not the time to have a fishing expedition," Mr. Chrétien told the House of Commons. "If things come from the Americans that demand to look further, of course, we'll look at what can be done and act accordingly."

The opposition and the Liberal-dominated foreign affairs committee have demanded a public inquiry and Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal has broken cabinet ranks and called for a judicial inquiry into the Arar affair.

Robert Fife is parliamentary bureau chief

Under fire: Canada accused of failing citizens in trouble, page A3