Is the use of torture justified?

I feel that the use of torture is justified when it is against terrorists and in some domestic criminal situations,especially when it concerns saving innocent lives. For example,a murderer has buried an innocent girl alive,it is neccessary and justified to use torture on the criminal to find the girl's whereabout when he refused to disclose any information. Or in other case of terrorism,we need to torture the captured member of the terrorist group in order to save a couple of millions lives. In these conditions,i feel that it is neccessary to use torture although there were no gurantees that torture would work.
However,i feel that torture should not be so severe that it paralysed the criminals. The torture should be of an acceptable conditions. If the criminals refused to leak out any information after several tortures,i think it is useless to carry on the torture as the criminals are determined to "sacrifice" rather than to cooperate with the police. At such cases,i feel that the authority should use a different approach to obtain the information that they want. For example,the police can try to encouraged the criminals to repent through religious methods if the criminals are staunt religious man.
Overall,i feel that to a certain extent,torture is justified in dealing with criminals and terrorists provided the tortures are not too severe.