Outrage over probe showing that CIA broke into Senate committee database

An internal CIA investigation has prompted bipartisan outrage and calls for spy chief John Brennan to resign, after it confirmed allegations that agency personnel intruded into a protected database used by Senate committee staff to compile a scathing report on the agency's detention and torture programme.

"This is very, very serious, and I will tell you, as a member of the committee, someone who has great respect for the CIA, I am extremely disappointed in the actions of the agents of the CIA who carried out this breach," said Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, the Senate Intelligence Committee's vice-chairman.

The rare display of bipartisan fury followed a three-hour private briefing by Inspector General David Buckley. His investigation revealed that five CIA employees, two lawyers and three IT specialists improperly accessed or "caused access" to a database that only committee staff were permitted to use.

Buckley's inquiry also determined that a CIA crimes report to the Justice Department alleging that the panel staff removed classified documents from a top-secret facility without authorisation was based on "inaccurate information", according to a summary of the findings prepared for the Senate and House intelligence committees and released by the CIA.

In other conclusions, Buckley found that CIA security officers conducted keyword searches of the emails of staffers of the committee's Democratic majority - and reviewed some of them - and that the three CIA IT specialists showed "a lack of candour" in interviews with Buckley's office.

The inspector general's summary did not say who may have ordered the intrusion or when senior CIA officials learned of it.

Following the briefing, some senators struggled to maintain their composure over what they saw as a violation of the constitutional separation of powers between an executive branch agency and its congressional overseers.