WASHINGTON, March 24 — A sharp debate within the Bush administration over the future of the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation program has left the agency without the authority to use harsh interrogation techniques that the White House said last fall were necessary in questioning terrorism suspects, according to administration and Congressional officials.

The agency for months has been awaiting approval for rules that would give intelligence operatives greater latitude than military interrogators in questioning terrorism suspects but would not include some of the most controversial interrogation procedures the spy agency has used in the past.

But the internal debate has left the C.I.A. program in limbo as top officials struggle over where to set boundaries in the treatment of people suspected of being involved in terrorist activities. Until the debate is resolved, C.I.A. interrogators are authorized to use only interrogation procedures approved by the Pentagon.

The C.I.A.’s proposed interrogation rules are part of the first major overhaul of the agency’s detention and interrogation program since the agency began jailing terrorism suspects in 2002. The agency has already decided to abandon some past interrogation techniques — among them “waterboarding,” which induces a feeling of drowning — that human rights groups and some lawmakers have argued are torture.