In the U.S., a heated dispute has broken out between the CIA and a senior U.S. senator, Dianne Feinstein, who says the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has been "spying on Congress" and possibly breaking the law by searching and deleting information from computers used by an Intelligence Committee.

Dianne Feinstein leads the Senate committee that oversees U.S. Intelligence agencies, and now Senator Dianne Feinstein is accusing the CIA of spying on her own committee's computers.

She says, "In place of asking any questions the CIA's unauthorized search of the Committee computers was followed by an allegation which we now have seen repeated anonymously in the press that the committee staff have somehow obtained the document through unauthorized or criminal means perhaps to include hacking into the CIA's computer network. As I have described this is not true."

U.S. Senator claims CIA hacked Congress computers.

The document she is referring to is part of a Senate review of the CIA's handling of detainee interrogations after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001.

According to Feinstein, the committee found the document as part of their investigation.

The CIA claims it may have been obtained illegally and has referred the matter to the Justice department for possible criminal investigation and the CIA's internal watchdog is also reviewing the matter.

John Brennan, the Director of US Central Intelligence Agency, says, "As far as the allegations of CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. We wouldn't do that. I mean that's, that's, that's just beyond the scope of reason."

Neither the committee nor the CIA has disclosed the content of the document.

The committee's review of the CIA has in part centered on the CIA destroying videotapes of detainee interviews that may have shown torture. Feinstein says her committee has copies of the review secured in a safe in a Senate office building.

She is pushing to make the review public. "We are not going to stop. I intend to move to have the findings,. Conclusions and the executive summary of the report sent to the president for declassification and release to the American people," says Feinstein.

It is against the law for the CIA to gather intelligence in the U.S.. The White House and the CIA director say they will support the findings of the Justice Department and the CIA's internal report.