Members of the European Parliament investigating the use of spyware by European Union governments have sharply criticized Israel for its lack of transparency in allowing the sale of powerful Israeli spyware to European governments, AP reports.

European lawmakers also condemned the Polish government for refusing to meet with them during a fact-finding visit to Warsaw that ended Wednesday.

“It is regrettable and we condemn the fact that the Polish authorities did not want to cooperate with our investigation committee,” Jeroen Lenaers, the head of the delegation, said at a news conference in Warsaw.

“We think it also is a telling sign of the complete lack of importance this government attaches to checks and balances, to democratic scrutiny and to dialog with elected representatives.”

The committee is investigating governments' use of Israel's Pegasus spyware and other invasive surveillance tools.

Pegasus was developed by Israel's NSO Group and is designed to hack into cell phones and extract vast amounts of information from them, including text messages, passwords, locations, microphone and camera recordings. The company promotes the technology as a tool for fighting criminals, but many cases have been found around the world in which governments have used it against dissidents, journalists and political opponents.

In Europe, cyber sleuths have found traces of Pegasus or other spyware in Poland, Hungary, Spain and Greece.

Sophie Veld, rapporteur of the investigation, said the committee learned that the NSO group sold spyware to 14 EU governments using export licenses issued by the Israeli government. It became known that NSO had stopped selling to two of them, but did not say which ones. It is widely believed that they are Poland and Hungary.