The government’s refusal to hold a public inquiry into allegations that the security services were complicit in the torture and abduction of terror suspects after 9/11 is to be subjected to a full scale legal challenge.

A high court judge, Mr Justice Hilliard, has granted permission for lawyers representing the former Brexit secretary David Davis, the Labour politician Dan Jarvis and the human rights organisation Reprieve to launch a judicial review of the government’s decision in July not to examine extraordinary rendition claims.

Calls for a judge-led investigation were reinforced after parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) published a damning indictment in 2018 of the role played by the overseas agency MI6 and the domestic service MI5, which were said to have been involved in hundreds of torture cases and scores of rendition cases.

The ISC reports said the intelligence agencies had been aware “at an early point” of the mistreatment of detainees by the US and others. There were two cases in which UK personnel were “party to mistreatment administered by others”.

One key passage in the report said MI6 had “sought and obtained authorisation from the foreign secretary” for the costs of funding a plane involved in an individual rendition case. It also found that in 232 cases UK personnel had continued to supply questions or intelligence to other services despite knowledge or suspicion of mistreatment.

Jarvis, Davis and Reprieve began legal action after it was announced during the last days of Theresa May’s premiership: “The government has decided that it is not necessary to establish a further inquiry. There is no policy reason to do so, given the extensive work already undertaken to improve policies and practices in this area.”

Granting permission for judicial review in a judgment last week, Hilliard noted: “The ISC has said … it was essential to hear from witnesses if the inquiry was to be thorough and comprehensive and in a position to reach properly considered, balanced and fair views about the facts. In the event, witnesses were not made available.

“The argument for an unmet investigative obligation emerges from the history of previous investigations which were not completed. It is, I think, properly arguable that witness testimony is particularly important where records may not tell the full story and that systemic failings may not be satisfactorily identified in separate proceedings initiated by individuals.

“Although some lessons have undoubtedly been learned and improvements made, it is open to argument whether all the necessary lessons can have been learned if the facts have not been fully established.”

Welcoming the judgment, Davis, who is standing for re-election, said: “This is an excellent result. The court recognised in terms of our argument that on the question of torture and rendition we cannot be certain that all the necessary lessons have been learned without a proper and full investigation of the facts.”

Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, said: “We are very pleased the court has found that the government has a case to answer over its failure to properly investigate ‘war on terror’-era torture and rendition. When the government broke its promise to survivors of torture, it also broke the law. The powerful must be held to account so that victims can move on with their lives, but just as importantly because if we do not fully investigate our past mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them.”

In May last year, the government gave an unprecedented public apology to two people, Abdul-Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar, for British involvement in their rendition to be tortured in Libya.