WASHINGTON -- An American Muslim subjected to several years of intense FBI scrutiny and questioning about links to terrorism has been held without charges, access to a lawyer or contact with his family for nearly three months by the security services of the United Arab Emirates.

The case of Naji Hamdan, coupled with FBI interrogations of at least one other U.S. citizen interrogated by the FBI while secretly detained without charges in East Africa, raises the question of whether the Bush administration has asked other nations to hold Americans suspected of terrorism links whom U.S. officials lack the evidence to charge.

That allegation is central to a lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union was planning to file Tuesday in federal court in Washington against President George W. Bush, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

''If the U.S. government is responsible for this detention and we believe it is, this is clearly illegal because our government can't contract away the Constitution by enlisting the aid of other governments that do not adhere to the Constitution's requirements,'' said Ahilan Arulanantham of the ACLU's southern California office.

The lawsuit, to be brought on behalf of Hamdan's wife and brother, demands that the U.S. government extend to Hamdan his constitutional guarantee against illegal detention by asking the UAE to release him.

`LAWLESS DETENTION'

''The most elemental legal principles by which we govern ourselves cannot countenance the lawless detention of a United States citizen at the behest of his own government,'' said a draft of the lawsuit provided to McClatchy by the ACLU.

A spokesman for the FBI's Los Angeles office, Alonzo Hill, referred all inquiries about Hamdan, a former resident of the city's Hawthorne neighborhood, to FBI headquarters in Washington, saying, ``This is a counter-terrorism case.''

FBI headquarters disputed the allegation that it had asked the UAE to arrest Hamdan but acknowledged that it routinely interviews detainees held in foreign jails.

''The FBI does not ask foreign nations to detain U.S. citizens on our behalf in order to circumvent their rights,'' said Special Agent Richard Kolko, a spokesman. ``In terrorism matters, we routinely work with foreign counterparts and in some cases, with the permission of the host government, FBI agents have been permitted to interview people who may possess relevant information.''

A State Department spokesman said the department had been aware of Hamdan's detention and that a U.S. consular officer visited him nearly two months after he was arrested.

The UAE Embassy said in an e-mail to McClatchy that all questions should be directed to the police in Abu Dhabi, the UAE sheikhdom where Hamdan is being held, because the case ``is related to a police/security matter, which involves a private U.S. citizen.''

Abu Dhabi, one of seven oil-rich sheikdoms, has cooperated closely with the Bush administration in cracking down against Islamist extremists following the 9/11 attacks.

Hamdan is a 42-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated to California from Lebanon in the early 1980s to attend university on a scholarship, worked as an aircraft technician and then opened a used auto parts business in Hawthorne, where he served on the board of a local mosque.

Hamdan's interaction with the FBI began in 1999, when agents visited him at his Hawthorne home and asked whether he knew Osama bin Laden.

The incident was recounted in a Los Angeles Times article on aggressive tactics used in FBI terrorism investigations.

Hamdan's wife, Mona Mallouk, and brother, Hossam Hemdan, insisted that he has never had any terrorism involvement or been charged with any crime despite the longtime FBI scrutiny.

`HATES TERRORISM'

''Naji hates war. He hates what happened on Sept. 11. He hates terrorism,'' Mona Hamdan said in a telephone interview from Beirut, Lebanon, where she and her children are living.

Hamdan moved to Abu Dhabi in 2006 and set up a business of importing used cars and doing car repairs, but then moved his family to Beirut and traveled between the two countries.

In August, he was questioned at the U.S. embassy in Abu Dhabi by two FBI agents who flew out from Los Angeles. Several weeks later, UAE officials detained him, Mallouk and Hossam Hemdan said.

Hemdan, who owns automobile emissions testing stations in Los Angeles, said he arranged for Hamdan to meet the agents at the FBI's request.

'[Hamdan] said `That's fine, I'll see them,' '' Hemdan recalled, adding that his brother later declined to discuss the meeting, except to say that ``the agents know all this stuff about me and you and other people.''

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