Is the use of torture ever justified in dealing with criminals and terrorists?

Torturing criminals and terrorists to gain information ---- doesn’t that put us at the same par as the offenders themselves? Why the use of torture? Morally, it is not acceptable. However some would argue that it is applicable to a certain extent. Personally I think that by abusing anyone to get what they want in whatever means is simply not justifiable. We have no rights even as police officers to incorporate violence while questioning the captives. In fact as police officers, isn’t it even more important for one to practice non-violence? Pulling someone’s fingernails out or the use of electric shock to obtain the information that they want is just unacceptable. Who gives us the rights to do so? As a matter of fact, by doing so, we are no different from the criminals themselves. Terrorists kill to defend their religion in the name of their God, we torture to prevail what we call justice, how does that differentiate us from them? Just as we condemn their wrong believes, should we start condemning ourselves for behaving no different from them? We abuse, torture, black-mail, and even threaten the lives of those captured to achieve our motives, and what if those won’t work? No worries, we’ll just resort to other ways like threatening them with the lives of their families. Let’s now ask ourselves, are these all justified? Can we say that when the 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (K.S.M.), who, according to senior intelligence officials, was told his children would be hurt if he didn't cooperate, justice?
Now, lets take the example of a psychopathic murderer who has buried a teenage girl alive and he is captured by the police. He refuses to say where she is. He taunts the police with his knowledge. In this case, is torture acceptable to find the girl and save her life? My verdict: No. Would you think that one would possibly get any outcome from torturing someone who is mentally disturbed? Do you think that the psychopath would be afraid of the pain inflicted and tell us where the girl is? Highly unlikely, I would say. In fact he/she being a sadist would probably enjoy being tortured and find the process thrilling. Not only does crime torture violates the international law, it is totally pointless and of no use. Instead, why don’t the police find the whereabouts of the girl with the help of some clues left by the murderer? If this took place 50 years ago, I would say it is virtually impossible to do so, But with the help of such advance technology, nothing is impossible. Instead of wasting time, torturing some lunatic freak, which the poor girl would have probably suffocated to death by the time anything relevant would come out of the mouth of the psychopath, why not utilize the time to find the girl themselves. After all I would think that one would not expect much fruitful information from the mouth of a psychopathic murderer. So stop this violence once and for all as it is getting us nowhere.