Rice tells Canada U.S. did not handle Arar case well, pledges to 'do better',- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted Wednesday the case of Canadian Maher Arar wasn't handled well by the United States.

"We do not think this case was handled as it should have been," she told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. "Our communication with the Canadian government about this was by no means perfect. In fact, it was quite imperfect."

Rice was fielding questions from legislators about Arar, a Canadian citizen who was detained by U.S. authorities during a stopover in New York and sent to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured on wrong intelligence that he was a terror suspect.

A commission of inquiry in Canada has cleared Arar of any links to terrorism, but he is still barred from travelling to the United States.

Rice did not apologize during testimony at the House committee, but she did say U.S. authorities failed to handle the case as well as they ought to have.

"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.

"But we have told the Canadian government that we did not think this was handled particularly well in terms of our own relationship and we will try to do better in the future."

Asked about Arar's torture and the Canadian inquiry that cleared the Ottawa telecommunications engineer, Rice said: "I am aware of claims he was tortured."

"I am aware of the inquiry, and we do not think this case was handled as it should have been. We do absolutely not wish to transfer anyone to any place that they might actually be tortured."

Rice said she could not immediately recall the details when asked whether the U.S. administration relied on Syrian assurances that Arar would not be tortured.

"I will get you a full accounting of this because my memory of some of the details has faded," she said.

Last week, both Republican and Democrat legislators offered apologies to Arar for his ordeal during a hearing at which Arar testified via videoconference from Ottawa.

Arar still has a lawsuit pending against American officials. Arguments are scheduled for Nov. 9 in New York.