WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - Leon Panetta, who as CIA director oversaw the US operation that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said the job could have been done without resorting to controversial interrogation methods that some have said constitute torture.

The outgoing defence secretary, in remarks aired Sunday on the NBC programme "Meet the Press," said there had been many pieces to the "puzzle" solved to find bin Laden, who was held responsible for the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

"Yes, some of it came from some of the tactics that were used at that time - interrogation tactics that were used," said Panetta, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2009 until he became US defence secretary on July 1, 2011.

"I think we could have gotten Bin Laden without that,"Panetta added in response to a question about what the interviewer called enhanced interrogation or torture.

Panetta did not elaborate on how this might have been done, but said most of the intelligence used to find bin Laden had been stitched together without resort to enhanced interrogation.

He was commenting on the 2012 film "Zero Dark Thirty," which portrayed the hunt that led to the successful May 2, 2011, raid on the al-Qaeda leader's hideout in Pakistan.

Some CIA veterans have defended the use of harsh techniques such as sleep deprivation, hypothermia, stress positions, slapping and waterboarding, to obtain information that helped get bin Laden. Waterboarding, in which a drowning sensation is inflicted on a captive, is often described as torture.