The U.S government should remove Maher Arar from its no-fly list in the wake of its admission that his deportation to Syria was improperly handled, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said.

"Today, I have written a letter to my counterpart in the United States …asking in light of what the secretary of state said, for them to reconsider their designation of Mr. Arar and remove him from those lookout lists," Day said in the House of Commons on Wednesday, responding to a question abour Arar.

The public safety minister's letter comes a day after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice commented about Arar's case while testifying before the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee.

Rice said that "the communication with the Canadian government on this [case] was by no means perfect; it was in fact quite imperfect."

But the U.S. continues to refuse to remove Arar's name from a list restricting him from flying to the U.S.

"We and the Canadians do not have the same understanding of what is possible in the future for Mr. Arar in terms of travel," Rice said on Wednesday.

Arar, now 37, was interrogated and tortured after U.S. officials sent him to Syria five years ago as a terror suspect. He spent nearly a year in prison but his name was cleared by the Canadian government following an inquiry last year led by Justice Dennis O'Connor.

O'Connor concluded Arar had no terror links and the RCMP had given misleading information to U.S. authorities, which may have been the reason he was sent to Syria.

In January, Ottawa reached a $10-million settlement with Arar over Canada's role in the deportation. The House of Commons issued a unanimous apology after the September 2006 release of the report that cleared his name.

The U.S. State Department has said that based on its own information, it will keep Arar on its security watch list, even though Ottawa has been pushing for his name to be removed.

But Day has said he has viewed the file on Arar and found nothing to suggest Arar is a security risk.