By Silvia Aloisi

ROME (Reuters) - Director Gavin Hood hopes his film "Rendition" about the U.S. practice of deporting suspected terrorists to foreign jails will raise public awareness and help stop abuse of human rights in the name of national security.

"It's easy to talk about arbitrary detentions and enhanced interrogation techniques and all these fancy words in the abstract and then we realise that in fact it's about people," Hood told reporters after a screening at the Rome Film Festival.

"(It's) not just the people to whom it happens but the people who are involved in having to do this and they don't quite know what the rules are ... We don't have the answers but I think we ask people to ask the questions and I hope the film contributes to the debate."

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon, "Rendition" tells the fictional story of an Egyptian-American engineer abducted by U.S. customs at Washington airport, deported to a North African jail and tortured under the eyes of a CIA agent.

Witherspoon plays the man's pregnant wife desperately trying to track him down, while Gyllenhaal is the reluctant CIA agent asked to supervise his brutal interrogation.

The film, which screened at the festival on Sunday and has just been released in the United States, is the latest in a string of Hollywood productions tackling the political and military fallout from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The theme has made U.S. cinema popular at European festivals this year, even though box office returns have been mixed.

Unlike other directors who have accused the media of not telling the full story about the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, Hood said the press had played a crucial role in bringing the practice of rendition to light.

"One of the ways that this controversy has come to the attention of the public is through the efforts of journalists and through the efforts of lawyers publicising these things," said the South African director, whose previous film "Tsotsi" won an Oscar for best foreign movie last year.

The United States acknowledges it has conducted secret international transfers of terrorist suspects and held them at secret prisons, but denies torturing them or handing them over to countries that torture prisoners.

The U.S. has sought to dismiss legal cases brought by victims on the grounds that they would violate state secrets.

Striving for balance, the film poses the question of whether potentially saving the lives of thousands makes it worth sacrificing one person's rights.

Hood said people should put themselves in the position of CIA officials, like the one played in the film by Meryl Streep, whose job is "to make sure that another 9/11 does not happen".

"We need clear rules not just to protect people like (the man) who is kidnapped but also to give guidance to the people whose job it is to protect the American people," he said.

"If there are no rules then why will they stop pushing the envelope in order to try and protect?"