The federal government has given former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci eight more months to complete his inquiry into whether Canadian officials were complicit in the imprisonment and torture of three Canadians while overseas.

Iacobucci is taking a closer look at the cases of Muayyed Nureddin, Abdulla Almalki and Ahmed Al Maati. All say they were accused of having links to al-Qaeda and tortured in Egypt and Syria. They say their interrogators told them their information came from Canada.

Iacobucci's report was due last week but he told the government that deadline was impractical.

Most coverage of the Iacobucci inquiry has so far focused on how little anyone knows about it.

Most of the work has been conducted behind closed doors since it began in March 2007.

Even lawyers for the three men at the centre of the inquiry have been denied access to the hearings.

Iacobucci has said it would be too difficult to obtain special security clearance for them.

The government has responded by saying the secrecy is necessary to protect national security and speed up the inquiry.

Iacobucci's new deadline is September 8th, 2008.