Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk appears before the Commons defence committee in Ottawa on Tuesday. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

Canada's top military commander denied reports that a suspected Taliban fighter abused by Afghan police in June 2006 had earlier been detained by Canadian troops.

Gen. Walter Natynczyk, Canada's chief of defence staff, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that Canadian troops questioned the man who was picked up during operations in Zangabad. But it was the Afghans who took him into custody, Natynczyk said.

"We didn't take this person under custody," he said.

Opposition parties have pointed to the June 2006 incident as proof the Conservative government knew of credible incidents of torture and of the dangers of transferring prisoners.

Notes from a military police officer suggest the prisoner was captured by Canadians and turned over to the Afghans, and his account is backed up by the sworn testimony of two other officers.

But Natynczyk said the man was released and picked up almost immediately by Afghan police, who led him away and started beating him with their shoes. Canadian troops then rescued the suspect from the Afghan police, he said.

Natynczyk said if Canadian Forces had detained the suspect, they would have brought in the military police, taken the man into close custody, moved him to Kandahar Airfield, then have him go through a medical assessment and tactical questioning.

Officers weren't there

"What we did on the ground was just basic routine questioning, as we do to thousands so that we ensure that we don't take people who could be innocent," he said.

Referring to the sworn testimony from a general and a colonel who claimed the detainee was transferred by Canadian troops, Natynczyk said those officers weren't on the ground in Kandahar at the time of the incident.

Nor was the military police corporal who wrote field notes about the incident, he added.

"He wasn't there at the event, he was there after," he said.

Natynczyk said that in order to learn the truth on the ground, he spoke to the Canadian platoon commander responsible for the operation and the battalion commander at the time in Afghanistan. Both men denied their troops captured the prisoner, he said.

"It was our approach and guideline for this operation that if there were detainees to be taken, it was the Afghan security forces who would do it," Natynczyk said. "We would not do it. This was their operation."

With files from The Canadian Press