WASHINGTON — A new release of stolen corporate e-mails by WikiLeaks has set off a flurry of concern and speculation around the world about a counterterrorist software program called TrapWire, which analyzes images from surveillance cameras and other data to try to identify terrorists planning attacks.

“U.S. government is secretly spying on EVERYONE using civilian security cameras, say WikiLeaks,” read a headline on Monday at the British newspaper Web site Mail Online. The article included a photograph from the movie “The Bourne Identity.” PC Magazine described TrapWire as “a secret, comprehensive U.S. surveillance effort.”

Though TrapWire Inc., the Virginia company that sells the software, would not comment on Monday, the reports appear to be wildly exaggerated. TrapWire was tried out on 15 surveillance cameras in Washington and Seattle by the Homeland Security Department, but officials said it ended the trial last year because it did not seem promising.

A claim in the leaked e-mails that 500 cameras in the New York subway were linked to TrapWire is false, said Paul J. Browne, the New York Police Department’s chief spokesman. “We don’t use TrapWire.”