BRUSSELS -- By CONSTANT BRAND

European Union nations told the United States Thursday they had a long list of legal and security questions before they could make any final decision on taking in Guantánamo Bay detainees.

Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer said he would lead a senior EU delegation to Washington in two weeks' time to see under what conditions EU countries could take in inmates from the U.S. detention center. He said he expected EU legal experts would get access to all files -- including top secret ones -- on the approximately 60 detainees who need to be accepted by a third country.

''There can't be any secrets,'' Langer told reporters after chairing talks of the bloc's interior and immigration ministers on the issue. ``I don't think there can be anything that should be kept secret from a country that would like to take in a Guantánamo detainee.''

Langer and Jacques Barrot, the EU's justice and home affairs commissioner, led a debate on how the EU should coordinate any reception of detainees. The 27-nation bloc has said it is open to considering taking in prisoners if asked to do so by President Barack Obama.

Spain and Portugal have already said they could accept prisoners, while Germany, France and others remain tightlipped whether they will accept non-nationals.

In his first week in office, the U.S. president ordered Guantánamo to be closed within a year and up to 60 inmates will have to go to another country as they could face abuse, imprisonment or death if returned to their homelands.

Taking inmates poses a security headache for the EU because 23 of its members share a common passport-free zone, meaning that if one of its members takes in a prisoner with a criminal record, all others in the zone will have to be duly alerted.

''Before we make a decision we have to have all the information we need,'' said Langer. ``Only with the information we need can we make recommendations for our colleagues whether or not to accept them.''

Gilles de Kerchove, the EU's anti-terror coordinator, said an EU vetting of candidates would be complex and slow.

''We have to be careful who we take in. Are they dangerous or not?'' he asked. ``It's a very complicated dossier, one that will take months.''

De Kerchove said experts needed to go through why the detainees were arrested to begin with, whether they were tortured or abused by U.S. interrogators, and whether they could face persecution if returned to their own countries.

Costs of resettlement, possible medical or psychological care and what status they would have in the EU is also to be assessed, de Kerchove said.

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the EU also had to take into account why the United States couldn't take in the safer inmates itself.

''If these people really are harmless, why are they still in Guantánamo?'' he asked.

About 240 detainees are still held -- most without charge -- at the prison camps, which opened Jan. 11, 2001 to hold so-called ''enemy combatants'' suspected of ties to the al Qaeda terror network or the Taliban, the religious militia in Afghanistan.

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