Admiral Stansfield Turner, a former CIA director, accused US Vice President Dick Cheney of overseeing policies of torturing terrorist suspects and damaging the nation's reputation, in a television interview.

"We have crossed the line into dangerous territory," Turner, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1970s, said on ITV news.

"I am embarrassed that the USA has a vice president for torture. I think it is just reprehensible. He (Cheney) advocates torture, what else is it? I just don't understand how a man in that position can take such a stance."