KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — CTV News South Asia Bureau Chief Paul Workman, who is in Afghanistan for five weeks, shares his diary on his experiences in the war zone.

Thursday, March 15: Abdul Noorzai has a gentle face with radiant eyes and remarkably long ear lobes. He smiles easily and often. He smiled widely this week when he met Canada's defence minister at the Kandahar airfield. Reporters smiled too as Noorzai jumped out of his car and walked right past Gordon O'Connor before being summoned back with the curl of the minister's index finger.

This was the man O'Connor vowed to look straight in the eye and demand some answers. The man he was supposed to meet two days earlier but was stood up. It finally happened with photo-op planning inside Canada's detention centre here, known officially as the "Detainee Transfer Facility." This is the place where Afghan prisoners end up before being handed over to local authorities, either the police, or the intelligence services. Most Afghan prisoners, but not all, it turns out. More on that later.

As regional director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Noorzai has an important position. Whenever he speaks, he always emphasizes the word "independent," even though the term is relative and used casually in a place like Afghanistan.

"He's a very honest man, really dedicated to human rights," said the minister who rather desperately needs Noorzai's help. Perhaps the word "desperate" is too strong; more like "badly wants," or "urgently requires."

That's because Canada's handling of prisoners in Afghanistan is in a troubling state. Besides accusations of abuse or mistreatment, some prisoners handed over to the Afghans have simply disappeared. Canada says it keeps a good list of dates and names, so what happened to the three men--suspected Taliban fighters--who were picked up last April and now can't be found?

That's where the honest Noorzai comes in.

To try and offset more embarrassment and raise the moral standard, Canada has asked the human rights director to monitor all prisoners who are captured by Canadian troops and then turned over to the Afghans. O'Connor says he is "reasonably confident" the human rights group is capable of doing the job. That's hardly a resounding endorsement of his new Afghan partner.

In fact, Noorzai is thrilled that a country like Canada has shown such confidence in his small, poorly funded, poorly staffed organization. The truth is that Canada didn't have much choice. There has been so much criticism of its policy regarding prisoners, so much exposure of the problems, the minister had to do something.

So a few weeks ago he worked out an agreement with the human rights group and consummated it with a trip to Kandahar.

"We'll watch, and we'll learn," was the minister's way of saying, who knows what's going to happen? "I guess some of the proof will be, if down the line they find something wrong in the Afghan system, we'll wait to see whether they tell us."

In the faded shelter of his office in Kandahar City, Noorzai talks confidently about his mission, though to other reporters he's complained about a lack of staff and resources, and of how sometimes his inspectors can't even get inside the country's jails. Then again he has a precarious job in a nation emerging from a long, black period of war and occupation, and still dealing with the violent burden of the Taliban.

He struggles through a few words of English. "When I meet the defence minister, I think he was very satisfied. He really like to work with the Afghan Independent Human Rights."

Noorzai tells me that Canada gave him the name of a prisoner it handed over last month, and his inspectors will visit the man for the first time this week.

That's a start, but not the end of it. By the time the minister flew home there was a new prisoner story to deal with. During operations last summer, Canadian soldiers arrested six Taliban fighters. Five were taken in for questioning, and one was handed over to Afghan military on the battlefield. According to a report in The Globe and Mail, he disappeared.

Canada has no idea what happened to the man. Was he released, did he escape, is he still sitting in a jail somewhere, or was he executed?

Noorzai has another case to investigate.