OTTAWA -- Maher Arar says he is disappointed in the federal government's continued refusal to apologize for the torture he suffered in a Syrian prison.

He spoke to RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli by telephone yesterday, one day after the head Mountie offered a public apology for his force's role in the affair.

"I thanked him for apologizing publicly. I have no reason to believe it was not sincere," Arar said in a telephone news conference yesterday from his home in British Columbia.

"But clearly it takes more than an apology. It takes serious action on his behalf, to hold those people who did this to me accountable."

He said he wants to see disciplinary steps taken against the RCMP agents who played a role in his deportation to a Syrian torture chamber.

He also wants the commissioner to get answers about why three other Arab-Canadian men were deported and held in foreign prisons.

Arar did not call for Zaccardelli's resignation, although he expressed frustration the commissioner did not spring to his defence sooner.

What he wants first is an apology from the federal government.

"We are still anxiously awaiting an apology from the prime minister on behalf of the entire Canadian government," he said.

"It is extremely disappointing" there has been none.

In 2002, the Mounties handed U.S. and Canadian authorities faulty information about Arar linking him to al-Qaida terrorists, which led to his detention at JFK airport in New York City.

American authorities then deported him to Syria, where he was beaten, whipped and jailed for a year in a cell barely bigger than a coffin.

The government has refused to apologize because it says that might drive up the cost of a financial settlement it intends to reach with Arar.

But Arar called the apology part of his healing process and insisted he would not use it in negotiations against the government: "It will not be a factor."

Arar said he also told Zaccardelli he's disappointed nobody has been punished for what happened to him.

"They are sending the wrong message to Canadians," he said.

"The message they are sending so far is that people who do wrong, or commit serious mistakes, they get away with it."

Accountability is crucial to rebuilding trust in the RCMP, he said.

Zaccardelli told a Commons committee this week he realized soon after Arar's deportation that an innocent man had been arrested.